


Only Human

by saltedpin



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DCEU
Genre: First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Ted and Booster are background characters yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 10:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7219447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedpin/pseuds/saltedpin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as a fill for the DCEU kinkmeme prompt:</p><p>  <i>Clark temporarily loses his powers, and while it's initially jarring, he gradually adjusts and tries to go about on a somewhat normal routine after telling his inner circle (which can also include the League since they're building themselves up). Problem is that he is somehow an even bigger danger magnet than Lois in this state.</i><br/> <br/>See author's notes for the full prompt!</p><p>This is set post-Dawn of Justice. There's some references to the comics, but nothing major.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Human

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing original prompt, in full:
> 
>  
> 
> _Clark temporarily loses his powers, and while it's initially jarring, he gradually adjusts and tries to go about on a somewhat normal routine after telling his inner circle (which can also include the League since they're building themselves up). Problem is that he is somehow an even bigger danger magnet than Lois in this state._
> 
> _Like maybe he'll finally be writing about the Gotham/Metropolis soccer game Perry has been yelling at him to cover when the Joker or Bane or whatever takes the stadium hostage and specifically the press box. And of course Clark gets singled out to get hauled out of the box._
> 
> _Or he'll be following up a lead for another story when he crosses paths with escaping bank robbers who snatch him up to try and hold off pursuing police._
> 
> _Or hell, he'll just be eating cereal in his apartment when some weirdo alien from another dimension of the future/Apokolips minion comes crashing through his window and tries to take off with him knowing he's Superman/last son of Krypton/blah blah._
> 
> _And Batman happens to come to his rescue every time, and he can't get the sight of increasingly disheveled and vulnerable and grateful Clark out of his mind, and he growls out something about locking Clark up in the Batcave for his own protection, and they argue about how serious Bruce sounds about actually doing that._
> 
>    
> This was originally posted in twelve parts on the kinkmeme. Thank you to everyone who kept reading and commenting after it turned into such a monster! It's very, very appreciated :)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you so much to my amazing beta, Apathy! All mistakes are mine.
> 
> PS. An alternate title: Depowered and Deflowered :p

When Bruce gets the call, the first thought in his head is, _I hope to God Clark isn’t flying right now._

Bruce hasn’t got superpowers, so he guesses the quickest way to be sure that he _isn’t_ is to call his desk phone at the Daily Planet. Clark is nothing if not diligent about answering his phone within three rings. It’s common courtesy, he says.

So five, Bruce supposes, would be an intolerable insult to whoever was calling, and Clark would probably blow his cover using his super speed to get to his desk. Bruce lets it ring five times before he hangs up.

So he’s not at his desk. That doesn’t mean anything, though, Bruce tells himself – Clark’s job takes him away from his desk with reasonable regularity. He’s not necessarily miles above the city or in the middle of a blazing inferno just because he’s not parked in his cubicle. It occurs to Bruce that Clark might not be in North America _at all_ – that he might have nipped across the Pacific to collect some award for rescuing a French kitten or something like that – and that this could prove to be awkward to explain, despite being better than the alternatives.

Bruce dials his cell phone.

“Clark Kent, Daily Planet,” Clark says, after exactly three rings.

“Clark. It’s me. What’re you doing right now?”

Clark hesitates. “I’m at the docks.”

“The docks.” Bruce does a mental run-down of all the possible things Clark could be doing at the docks. Only some of them are things he likes. “What’re you doing there?”

“I was meeting with a source.” Clark’s voice is only _slightly_ defensive – they’re long past the arguments they used to have about these things, where Clark would insist that, no matter what, it was a matter of his journalistic integrity to keep the identity of his sources a secret, no matter how much use it might be for _Batman_ , if not Bruce Wayne, to know who they are and what they’re involved in.

“Stay where you are,” Bruce tells him. “I mean it. Under no circumstances are you to move from that spot.”

“What’s the matter?” Clark asks. “If it’s urgent, I can just –”

For a split second, Bruce lets himself think: maybe Power Girl was wrong, and Booster knocking over that mystical artifact in Doctor Fate’s room meant nothing. Maybe Clark never lost his powers after all. He certainly doesn’t seem to have noticed if he has.

“ – fly over to the lake house, if that’s where you are. There’s no one around. Why don’t I – huh.”

_Huh._

Bruce doesn’t have to ask what that _huh_ means. “Like I said. Stay. Where. You. Are.”

 

*

 

In the stark minimalism of the lake house, Clark looks out of place. He’s wearing a cheap tweed jacket with – Bruce’s lip twitches – patches on the elbows. It’s as if someone, deep in Clark’s Midwestern past, had shown him a picture of how a big city reporter was _supposed_ to dress, and that’s the image he’d doggedly stuck with for the next thirty years, totally impervious to any outside forces.

Bruce has always been struck by how unnervingly human Clark looks when he’s in his civilian guise – he’s every inch the mild mannered reporter he’s supposed to be. Except this time is different. _This_ time, he actually is exactly what he appears to be.

Clark looks unsure as he stands in the middle of the polished concrete floor. Bruce can understand that – it must be strange to have gone from being so powerful to being suddenly, by comparison, so fragile. Bruce has to remind himself that despite that, Clark is hardly going to snap in halves in a stiff breeze – _depowered_ doesn’t mean _helpless_. Most people would consider Clark Kent to be abnormally muscular for someone with a desk job.

_But still…_

“Tell me again – what exactly did Kara say to you?” Clark asks.

“Not much. Something about Booster using one of Doctor Fate’s artifacts as a pencil sharpener. They’re trying to get in contact with him to reverse the effect, but seeing as he’s hardly at anyone’s beck and call it could take a while. And until they get it sorted out, you’ve lost your powers.”

Clark glances up, looking out over the water. “Is anyone else affected?”

“Not as far as we know,” Bruce says. “But there’s still others to check on.”

Clark says nothing. He just keeps looking out over the lake. Bruce realises that sooner or later he’s going to have to say _something_.

“Do you want me to… _do_ anything?” he settles on eventually.

Clark turns to face him, and to Bruce’s surprise, he’s actually smiling. That weirdly boyish smile that Bruce always thinks looks incorrigible on the face of someone who could punch him into a fine paste if he chose to.

He shakes his head. “No, it’s fine.” Clark takes a deep breath, licking his lips. “Perhaps I should be more worried, but… I know Kara can handle it. And honestly, Bruce…”

He trails off. He’s staring out over the water again, as if he’s never seen it before.

Though maybe he hasn’t, Bruce suddenly realises. Or at least, not in the way he’s seeing it now. Bruce still isn’t sure he fully understands the true extent of Superman’s powers, or how he uses them – what he can turn on and off, what he hears and what he’s learned to filter out. Whether he has to wake up every morning and make a conscious choice not to be looking up through his upstairs neighbour’s floor.

So maybe this is something different for him. Maybe he’s seeing the world through truly human eyes, for the very first time in his life.

“In any case,” Bruce says gruffly after a moment of silence, and it becomes clear Clark isn’t going to continue. “I think it’s best if you just lie low until your powers are restored. However long that takes.”

Clark’s brows furrow. Bruce knew he wasn’t going to like that, but really, he can’t see how Clark can refuse. He doesn’t have to say it – it hangs heavily in the air between them. The last time Clark had a fight at less than full power, it was… well, it wasn’t much of a fight. Bruce swallows. He _hopes_ he doesn’t have to bring that up.

“I don’t see why it should be a problem,” Clark says, frowning. “I can still fight crime, even without my powers. _You_ do.”

There’s a thousand things Bruce wants to say to that. _Yes, but I’ve trained every day for thirty-five years for it. Yes, but you have no idea what it’s like to get punched and actually feel it, and I’m still feeling punches I got three weeks ago. Yes, but my God sometimes I can’t even get out of bed without every joint in my body cracking when I sit up._

He doesn’t say any of that, though. He just says, “I think that would be ill-advised.”

Clark looks a little rankled and inclined to argue, but Bruce doesn’t especially want to hear it. “But – ” he starts, but before he can get further, Bruce has already turned away.

“Can I get Alfred to call you a cab?” he asks as he walks across the room.

He pauses in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder. Clark’s face is all screwed up, and he’s clearly trying to think of some clever retort; however, given that the only way he can get back into Gotham and then take the ferry to Metropolis right now is by cab, he doesn’t exactly have many options open to him.

“Yes. Please.”

As Bruce presses the intercom for Alfred, he watches as Clark strides across the room, stubs his toe on the step, almost keels over, and then tries to surreptitiously limp his way out of the door.

 

*

 

The few times he’s been admitted into the Batcave, Clark had assumed that Bruce’s vast array of technology was simply another manifestation of his extraordinary paranoia. The stacked screens, the feeds that transmit directly from Gotham’s impressive security apparatus, the police scanner, the air traffic control scanner, Bruce’s _own_ set of cameras set up in various buildings where Wayne Enterprises has security and IT systems contracts… all of it ends up in the Batcave, where Bruce – or probably more often, Alfred – monitor, filter, assess. Relentlessly.

What Clark _now_ realises is that all those monitors, all that equipment isn’t really in the service of Bruce’s paranoia – well, not entirely, anyway. Clark now realises that if you’re going to cast your shadow over the whole of the Gotham underworld, it’s actually more of a necessity.

Clark glances down at the streets of Metropolis, a sickeningly long distance below him.

He supposes if _he_ had equipment like Bruce’s he might’ve caught up somewhat faster on all the things that’d happened while he was… well, while he was effectively dead (and it still feels weird to think of it that way – that there were funerals, that people _mourned_ him. That months upon months had passed while he’d been lying under clods of earth, until one day he’d simply woken up, dug his way out, and scared his mother half to death by wandering into the kitchen covered in dirt. He’d been lucky the shotgun wasn’t in grabbing distance, or he would’ve had to go through the whole thing all over again).

But given how shaky his powers were in those first few days, and given that Ma had never seen the big deal about ‘that thing, the internet’, he’d had to stick to print.

Some things, he knows. He knows about the fledging steps the League have taken into the world. He knows about the state funeral, and about Lex Luthor’s madness and imprisonment. He knows Bruce has been funding a hefty whack of the reconstruction efforts in Gotham and Metropolis.

Unfortunately, he failed to catch up on a lot of other things.

Honestly though, he’s not sure it would’ve _helped_ in this instance.

There’s not a lot a man can do when a 500-pound, hyper-intelligent gorilla who has just busted his way out of Iron Heights Penitentiary snatches you up and drags you to the top of a building – which has, ironically, only just been rebuilt, courtesy of one Bruce Wayne.

Not when he doesn’t have his powers, anyway.

Considering he’d been very much Clark Kent when Grodd first snatched him up, Clark’s intention had been to wait until they were at some suitable height, then slip out of the gorilla’s fingers and discretely divest himself of his shirt and tie, before flying back to capture him.

Of course, that plan had gone hurtling out of the window the second he’d felt the squeeze of Grodd’s fingers around his ribcage forcing the air out of lungs, and the nauseating way his feet had been swept out from under him as Grodd hurtled up the side of the construction site.

They're going a bit slower now as they reach the as yet unreconstructed spire. Grodd is groping for handholds. Somewhere in the distance, Clark thinks he can hear a helicopter.

“Look,” he says, keeping his tone reasonable. Grodd’s an intelligent being, after all, which means he can be reasoned with. “I’m a reporter. I can help you get your message out. But I can’t if I’m –”

“If you’re spattered in every direction across the sidewalk, like so much spaghetti sauce?” Grodd finishes for him. “I _know_ you’re a reporter, you cretin. That’s why I chose you as a hostage. Do you think I’m so stupid as to simply snatch the first person I saw on the street? No – if I’m going back to that hideous place, then I’m making sure The Daily Planet remembers me for it.”

 _Oh,_ Clark thinks. _Well then._

The helicopters are getting closer. The wind – not something he’s ever had to worry about before – is biting into his skin the higher they climb. He’s shivering. That’s never happened to him before either. Clark looks down at his bare arm in curiosity, watching as his skin rises into goosebumps.

_Huh._

Clark has lived amongst humans all his life, and yet, he still feels he’s learning even the first things about them sometimes.

The helicopter that has been tracking them swoops around in a close pass, and Clark doesn’t need any kind of super vision to see the grey sunlight glinting off the rifle scope as it angles in their direction. The small red dot of the laser sight traces its way up over Grodd’s dark fur.

“Fools,” Grodd mutters. “They won’t shoot me while I’m holding you – just another one of your sentimental human folli –”

Clark doesn’t hear the shot when it’s fired – but given it’s a tranquilizer dart that lodges itself in Grodd’s shoulder and not a bullet, he supposes he wouldn’t.

For a moment, they both look down at it in surprise. Then their eyes meet. “Sonofa –” Grodd says, and then Clark feels his stomach drop, the sky reeling down and the ground up as Grodd’s fingers lose their hold on the girder he’s been clinging to.

And then he’s dropping like a stone, the force of gravity grabbing at him in a way he hasn’t felt since he was first learning to fly, becoming a graceless, flailing bundle of limbs plummeting towards the earth.

Clark isn’t really sure _what_ to feel – on the one hand, he trusts that the tactical response team would not have tranquilised Grodd if they didn’t have a plan.

On the other, the ground is rushing up at him, very fast and very large, and if there _is_ a plan, Clark would really appreciate it if they enacted it round about _n –_

“ _Unf._ ”

Clark feels his head snap back on his neck, all his joints simultaneously yanked out of his sockets as _something_ smacks into him. For a moment, he can’t quite get ahold of what’s happened; but then, he realises he’s swinging through the air, a strong arm around his waist, rough armour against his cheek.

_Bruce._

Or Batman, rather. Swinging between buildings on the end of the Batline. His timing really is exquisite, Clark has to admit. And as plans go, he can’t fault it – he’s off the top of the building, after all.

Now if only his head would stop feeling like… well, like someone dropped a nuclear bomb in it. Considering he _knows_ what that feels like, Clark thinks he’s qualified to comment.

Batman swoops down into a section of crumbled buildings that no one’s yet started to clear away, letting Clark drop to the ground. His knees give way beneath him, and he has to break his fall with his hands. He can feel – _really_ feel – the tiny shards of concrete as they embed themselves in his skin, and when he looks down, there’s blood oozing out of a graze across his palm.

“What were you doing up there?” Bruce’s voice is distorted by the Batsuit – the first time Clark has heard it since he lost his powers.

He glances up, confused, before it comes to him that before, whenever he’d heard Batman’s voice coming from within the suit, he’d been using his hearing to filter out the distortion – to still hear _Bruce_ behind all the electronic fizz. It’s strange to hear it now. Like he’s talking to someone else. Like it’s yet another layer that has descended between them, after all the time they’ve spent cautiously pulling them down.

“I wasn’t exactly up there by choice,” Clark says, getting shakily to his feet. He still feels like his body is pulling itself together. His neck is _killing_ him. “Grodd just grabbed me. Believe me, it wasn’t my idea.”

Bruce is silent a while, his eyes white in the blackness of the cowl. “Why you?”

Clark shrugs. “Beats me. He said he wanted The Planet to truly have something to write about him this time – something to remember him by. He knew he was going back to Iron Heights.” Clark glances over his shoulder, not sure if he wants to know. “Speaking of Grodd…”

“He’s fine.” Bruce’s tone is curt. “The emergency response team is more experienced in animal capture since the last time Grodd got out.”

Clark opens his mouth to ask, but then decides he probably doesn’t even want to know.

“Well… thank you for saving me,” he says eventually. His Ma raised him with good manners. You thank people who save your life, even if they seem, inexplicably, to be blaming you for your predicament.

“You need to be more careful,” Bruce says after another long pause. “Stay out of trouble. You were lucky this time. Next time I might not be around to save you.”

Clark isn’t sure what to say to that – saying something like, _Well, I’m sure you will,_ seems to imply that he’ll both need rescuing again, and he expects that Bruce will be on call to do it.

But as Bruce shoots his Batline up into the cratered vault of the ruined building before zipping away once more, Clark can’t help but watch as he goes, a quiet confidence building in his chest.

 

*

 

Clark doesn’t remember what death felt like the first time (second time? The nuclear blast _hurt_ , but he’s not entirely certain if it killed him or not – he’s inclined to think ‘not’, but he still doesn’t know for sure). He wonders if he’ll remember it _this_ time.

He’d been doing exactly what Perry had been asking him to do, and covering the big Metropolis/Gotham soccer match when the trouble had started. The game had been going well, as far as Clark could tell – nil all – when suddenly there’d been smoke on the ground and men in black jackets rappelling down from the top of the stadium. Clark, sitting in the press box, had helped get the people he could see through the smoke to safety, shouting to the security guards to open the gates, to let the people out.

He’d been overcome by the smoke, then – it stung his eyes and burned his lungs, until a heavy hand had come down on the back of his neck, jerking him back.

_Bane._

He’d read about this before. Bane had some kind of ‘bread and circuses’ prejudice against sports. Or perhaps he’d simply decided he needed a do-over.

“Ahh,” Bane had muttered as he reached down, fingering Clark’s press pass. “A member of the corrupt press, who claim to be uncovering truth even as they keep the people cosseted in their ignorance.”

Clark had swallowed and said nothing. He’d blinked his watering eyes, but had realised that trying to respond would only make him cough. He’s beginning to understand these things better now – what his human lungs can and can’t do.

“You, I think, will make an excellent demonstration as to the seriousness of our intent.”

Even if he’d _wanted_ to say anything then, Bane had shoved a shotgun under his chin before he could, forcing his head up.

And this was when Clark had started to wonder if he might die.

The smoke had cleared, and the remains of the crowd – those who hadn’t been fortunate enough to escape – were looking down at them. His eyes still hurt, but Clark could see their faces, shocked and pale.

“ _Acta est fabula_ , Mr. Kent,” Bane says, his fingers tightening in his hair. “But I’m afraid you may not be here for your applau –”

Whatever quip he’s halfway though, Bane never gets to finish it. In the next second, his head snaps back, and Clark hears the dull _thunk_ of something bouncing off his mask.

Bane’s fingers release Clark’s hair, as he slowly slumps to the ground.

There’s a shocked silence. Bane’s men fidget uncertainly. Everyone seems unsure of exactly what to do next.

Then the security guards seem to come to their collective senses and rush forward, overwhelming the henchmen, drawing their pistols and handcuffs and forcing them to the ground. Clark simply stays where he is, staring down at Bane’s prone form.

_What happened?_

Blinking, Clark shifts his gaze slightly, and his eyes fall on a player’s shoe, lying abandoned on the grass. It might have fallen off someone’s foot, except Clark doesn’t think that’s the case. There’s a tiny smear of blood on one of the cleats.

Clark looks up, glancing around, wondering who could have thrown such a thing – who had that precise an aim, and a good enough throwing arm that they could knock a man of Bane’s stature unconscious with something so un-aerodynamic?

Clark can only think of one, but –

Then his eyes lock onto the face of Bruce Wayne where he’s standing, scowling, in the corporate sponsors pen on the sidelines of the pitch. Bruce makes a great show of dusting off his expensive suit before raising an eyebrow and turning away.

 

*

 

Bruce stares at the swirling, inky pocket of air in the middle of the room. It’s all that remains of the trans-dimensional portal into which the seething, writhing mass of tentacles has just disappeared. He’d only just gotten here in time: Doctor Fate had given him the relevant artifact and told him what was afoot, but hadn’t actually teleported him to Clark’s apartment to take care of it.

Doctor Fate is an asshole like that.

A cough over to his left draws his attention to Clark, who’s lying in the rubble of his kitchen wall (such as it was), covered in bits and pieces of plaster, splintered wood, and… what looks like some kind of sticky alien slime. When Bruce had gotten here and kicked in Clark’s door, the… thing, whatever it was, had several of its tentacles wrapped around his body and was slowly dragging him towards the portal, while Clark scrabbled ineffectively at the floor.

“What the _fuck_ was all that about?” Bruce asks.

Clark just coughs again, before looking away. Bruce is slightly taken aback when he sees that Clark’s ears have turned bright red.

“It said it wanted to, ah, breed me,” he mumbles.

Bruce knows he heard correctly, but he wishes he didn’t.

“ _What?_ ”

Clark waves a hand embarrassedly, getting slowly to his feet. “Its… the situation is a little complex, as I understood it. Its race have been inbreeding for some time. They need… ah, fresh genetic material. Apparently their closest genetic match is Kryptonians, and seeing as I’m the only Kryptonian left….”

Bruce stares at where the last of the portal is now beginning to slip away, its remains carried off on the breeze. “You. Are genetically similar. To _that_.” A second thought occurs to him. “What about Kara?”

Clark laughs a little. A nervous laugh. “Well, apparently they don’t _all_ look like that. As far as the second thing goes, it seems that in their race, it’s the male who –” He cuts himself off when Bruce raises his hands.

“Stop. I literally don’t want to know.”

Clark obliges him, and stops talking. They survey the wreckage of Clark’s tiny apartment together.

“Well, this is ruined,” Bruce says, redundantly – but he wants to get the word _breed_ out of his head.

Clark nods. “Thank goodness Lois wasn’t –” he starts to say, voice quiet, but he doesn’t finish the sentence.

Bruce does him the courtesy of not responding. Of course Lois _wasn’t_. Lois _wasn’t_ , _isn’t_ and _hasn’t_ for several months. She took a job as the BBC’s northern Africa correspondent as part of her effort to put her life back together after…

After what had happened to Clark. She’d mourned. She’d built herself up again, piece by piece, and she’d decided that she could go forward and live after all. Bruce couldn’t find it in himself to blame her if she was leery of coming back, after all that.

Neither could Clark, he guessed. Because Clark was that sort of guy.

“Do you have somewhere else you can stay?”

Clark shakes his head. “I’ll just stay in a hotel for a few nights.”

“I can pay for this to be fixed,” Bruce tells him. He glances around. “I don’t think that wall is structural, so I don’t think we have to involve anyone else. I can put you up somewhere nice, too.”

Clark shakes his head. “That’d be a conflict of interest. I can’t have you fixing up my apartment and paying for hotel rooms.”

Bruce draws in a deep breath, and then slowly releases it. “Do you know what a bedbug is? Because you won’t like it.”

“I’ll be fine,” Clark says, looking a little ruffled.

Bruce looks him up and down. He’s still covered in plaster and alien mucus, and his glasses are cracked and sitting crooked on his nose.

“Yeah, I’m seeing a lot of evidence for that,” Bruce says, his sarcasm staying _just_ this side of cruel. He takes a deep breath, and grits his teeth. “You could stay with me.”

He can see the way Clark’s head suddenly flicks towards him, the surprised blink behind the one still intact glasses lens. “I – well, I appreciate it,” he says slowly. “But that’s no better. I’ll just get a hotel. Trust me, Bruce – _nothing_ is going to happen.” Clark tries to laugh, but it sounds a little shaky. “Anyway, what could be so bad, after this?”

 

*

 

“This really wasn’t my fault,” Clark argues. It does no good, though: it’s clear Bruce isn’t listening.

To be fair, Clark thinks, it’s probably taking a lot of his strength to haul him up from where he’s dangling over this pit of lava.

 

*

 

“This is the last time I’m doing this,” Bruce grinds out as he fishes Clark out of the Metropolis sound.

 

*

 

“What did I _literally just say_ ,” Bruce roars not thirty seconds later, after Clark stands up too fast and tips over into the water again.

 

*

 

“We have a problem.”

Clark nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of Batman’s voice emanating from a dark corner of his hotel room. As it is, he drops his eggs, and he hears them crack as they fall onto the scuffed linoleum of his hotel room floor. He still hasn’t quite mastered catching things without super reflexes yet. Plus the pain in his ribs after… well, after what had happened yesterday kind of precludes any fast movements.

Sighing, he switches on the fluorescent lights, trying not to wince as they buzz to life.

“Do we?” he asks as he reaches for a broom, trying not to let it show as a white-hot pain flares down his side. Plus, he’d really wanted those eggs.

“Do I really have to spell it out?” Bruce asks, his voice heavy and distorted by the cowl.

Clark swallows. “Look, I _know_ ,” he says as he throws the broken remains of his eggs into the trash. “But I honestly think that –”

“How many times, Clark?”

Clark doesn’t look up. “How many times what?”

“How many times have I had to rescue you over the last four weeks?”

Clark casts his mind back. He supposes it depends on what Bruce means by _rescue_ , really – you can’t classify the time he pulled him out of Cat Grant’s lacquered clutches a _rescue_ per se, and the thing with J’onn had been fine once Ted had arrived with more Oreos.

_So…_

“Seven?” Clark ventures.

“That’s a very conservative estimate.”

Clark ties off the trash bag. There’s no sense in ‘rotting egg’ being added to the already vast array of aromas he encounters on coming home from work every day. And Bruce had been right, of course – he did _not_ like bed bugs.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” He can’t help but feel Bruce is being just a little unfair, here. This isn’t exactly something he had planned on.

“You’re coming with me. You’re staying at the lake house until your powers are sorted out. However long that takes.”

“You _know_ I can’t do that,” Clark says, affronted. “I have a job and responsibilities. Perry expects –”

Bruce shakes his head. Once. Firmly. “The only place Perry expects you to be is at Wayne Manor, since I told him you were the only reporter I’d allow on the property to cover the renovations for the society pages. Which means if you don’t want to lose your scoop, you’re coming with me.”

Clark stares. “You did what?”

The cowl is impassive. “Clark. This is happening. Whether you like it or not. Do _not_ make me throw you over my shoulder.”

Clark blinks, looking at him warily. “You wouldn’t.”

The only part of Bruce’s face that he can see, his mouth, is set in a grim line. “Try me.”

 

*

 

It’s only once Bruce has Clark sitting down on the expansive leather couch of the lake house that he really starts to see these things, and he wonders why he didn’t earlier. He has, after all, been watching him carefully these past few weeks, and Clark is usually so impervious to anything and everything that hits him that even the slightest change in his demeanor should have been like a warning broadcast to him.

But for whatever reason, it’s only just now that Bruce is seeing that he’s not sitting back on the couch, but rather holding himself stiffly upright, his left shoulder held higher than his right. There’s small cuts and grazes over the backs of his hands, and Bruce can see he’s not quite turning his head to what should be its full rotation as he watches Bruce walk back and forth across the room, clearing the cushions off the couch so Clark will have somewhere to sleep.

He takes them down the corridor and stores them in one of the invisible closets built into the wall. He takes a deep breath before he comes back into the living area, and stands in front of the hearth, staring down at Clark.

“How long have you had cracked ribs?”

Clark glances up, surprised. “How long… sorry, what?”

Bruce shakes his head. “Are you really going to do this?”

Clark opens his hands, and Bruce watches as a wince runs down the full length of his face. “I just… only since yesterday. I didn’t know that’s what it was.”

 _Yesterday, yesterday… what had happened yesterday?_ “I didn’t have to rescue you yesterday. So I know that’s not true.”

Clark shifts a little, looking uncomfortable. “Look, it’s not important.”

There’s a cold feeling in the pit of Bruce’s stomach. Had Clark been in some kind of danger yesterday, and he hadn’t known about it? Was there some kind of flaw in his surveillance? Had be been inattentive? How could he have –

“I got run over by the Daily Planet snack cart, all right?” Clark says, not looking at Bruce. “I was crouched over in the aisle to tie my shoelace, and the guy didn’t see me, so –”

Bruce feels a kind of hysterical laugh welling up inside him. All these weeks of protecting Clark, and he goes and gets hit by a fucking lunch trolley. There’s not a lot of things that have made Bruce laugh over the years, but _this_ , this might just do it.

“Let me look at it.”

Clark glances up, a quick movement of his head that clearly causes him a lot of pain.

“It’s fine, Bruce.”

“It clearly isn’t. Have you been taking any painkillers for it?”

“Children’s aspirin.” Clark looks – and sounds – sheepish. “I didn’t have anything stronger. I never thought I’d need it.”

“So I’m guessing that didn’t put a dent in the pain.”

“I… no.”

Bruce lets out a long sigh. The need to laugh has subsided. He doesn’t know how familiar Clark is with pain – _well, that’s not entirely true_ , a voice in his head reminds him – but cracked ribs are cracked ribs, and that can’t be pleasant.

“You’re going to have to put some ice on them,” Bruce says. “Did you bandage them? If you did, we’re going to have to get those off, right now. How’s your pain level?”

Clark grimaces. “I don’t really have that much of a basis for comparison, but… pretty bad. I think.”

Bruce nods. “Fine. Take your shirt off.”

There’s a sharp intake of air, and Clark blinks, as if he can’t possibly fathom why that might be necessary.

“So I can put ice on you,” Bruce clarifies, as if he’s talking to a not-so-bright child. “It helps.”

“Oh. Sure, I know,” Clark says, but Bruce sees his eyes shift away uncomfortably.

Bruce leaves Clark to his own devices and goes and gets some ice from the fridge, letting the cubes drop into a glass from the dispenser. Vapor rises from their surface as they clink out, one by one. For a moment, Bruce considers getting himself a drink, before deciding against it. He grabs a towel and heads back to the lounge.

Clark is still struggling with his shirt when he gets back – he’s managed to pull one arm out, but apparently does not have the mobility to finish the job. He looks up at Bruce a little helplessly, his eyes startlingly blue under the light of the lamp.

“Here, I’ll do it,” Bruce says, exasperated.

He knew from the moment he’d decided that Clark could not be trusted to look after himself out in the wider world that there was really only one solution; he’d also known from the first time he’d made the offer, back when Clark’s apartment had been destroyed, that it’s a bad solution.

The only person who’s welcome here for more than a few hours at a time is Alfred – and even then, Bruce tends to throw him out as soon as the carping about the wine cellar and the women’s underpants down the back of the couch and the stains on the rug get to be too much. He hasn’t been in the mood to hear it lately.

But Clark could not be out in the world in his current state. That’s been proven enough times already. Really, Bruce should have offered sooner, if only for his own convenience. _But then…_

But then, Clark would have been on his couch, in his _space_ , looking at him with a kind of mixture of defiance and helplessness because he can’t even take his own damn shirt off.

_A fucking lunch trolley._

“Look, just hold still.”

Bruce has cracked his ribs more times than he can count, so he knows the limits of Clark’s movements as he slowly moves his white shirt down over his arms.

Under the shirt, Clark’s skin is marked by a cobweb of scratches and minor lacerations; the small bruises and grazes he’s picked up since he lost his powers, and the whole world apparently decided it was _Let’s Murder Clark Kent Day_. Bruce isn’t sure whether he’s surprised or not at the sight of Clark’s – of _Superman’s_ – usually pristine form being marred by this evidence of his current mortality. He’s been there when Clark acquired most of these; he’s seen him take worse (much worse).

But for some reason, this time, it unnerves him a little. Possibly because it’s so obvious that Clark hasn’t been treating them. Hell – is Clark even up to date with his shots? Could he even _get_ shots as a child? Would a tetanus needle just have snapped off against his skin?

Aside from the cuts and scrapes through, Bruce is mildly shocked by the size of the massive purple bruise that spreads across Clark’s side, yellowing on the edges. It’s… ugly. Like something that doesn’t belong.

“Jesus, Clark,” Bruce mutters as he surveys the damage. “Did you say he hit you with a lunch trolley or with a tank?”

“I wasn’t sure how long it should be taking to heal,” Clark says. “I mean… I’ll be fine in a couple of days right?”

Bruce laughs. Bitterly. “A couple of days? Try a couple of _months_. Your cuts will clear up if I get some disinfectant onto them, but your ribs won’t heal for six weeks, depending on how bad the crack is.”

Clark’s eyes widen. “Your cracked ribs don’t take that long to heal.”

“Yes, they do.”

The silence that hangs between them in the second that follows is heavy – Bruce can see that Clark is about to ask, before comprehension dawns, and his snaps his mouth shut quickly. Bruce watches his Adam’s apple dip as he swallows.

“Let’s get this done,” he says, not wanting to discuss this any longer.

He wraps the ice in the towel and ignores Clark’s shocked, hissing inhalation when he presses it against his skin. He twitches, abdominal muscles clenching.

“That’s _cold_.”

Bruce doesn’t dignify that with a response.

“Hold it here. It’ll bring the swelling down. I’ll go get the disinfectant.”

There’s Q-Tips and peroxide in the bathroom cabinet. Bruce briefly sees his own face in the mirror before he opens it up, but he doesn’t look for long.

When he gets back, Clark still dutifully has the ice pressed against his side, just like Bruce showed him, but his eyebrows are furrowed, and Bruce can see it’s proving to be a test of character for him. The ice has melted slightly, and as Bruce sits down across from him, he notices a trickle of water escaping from the towel and running over Clark’s skin, tracing its way between the grooves of his muscle.

He clears his throat.

“This’ll sting; try not to move.”

And it does, and Clark does – though he still can’t quite suppress the full range of small shudders and twitches as Bruce dabs the peroxide over the worst of the cuts. There’s a nasty gash just below his collarbone that Bruce has to clean a lot of dried blood out of; really, this is just sad.

“Don’t you know anything about basic first aid?” he murmurs as he cleans, not really expecting a response. He’s concentrating on the wound – bright against Clark’s pale skin, sitting just above the swell of his pectoral muscle and just below the arch of his clavicle.

“I… do,” Clark says, his voice sounding a little strained. “But I just never thought… I didn’t really know how bad these were. I thought they’d just clear up after a day. People must get this kind of thing all the time, and they just… you know…”

Bruce resists the urge to shake his head. All right, fine. He supposes it would shock Clark to know of all the petty and not-so-petty pains and twinges humans carry around with them on a day-to-day basis. The aches and pains that have simply become integrated into their bodies.

He lays the bloody Q-Tip aside, and reaches for another. Clark hisses when he presses it against the gash, slowly stroking away the dried blood and bits of dirt, the cotton fluff from his shirt that has gotten stuck in it.

Once he’s satisfied, he tears off a strip of medical tape with his teeth and sticks and square of gauze over it. Provided Clark has enough of his natural good health left, he should be fine. Nothing looks infected.

Bruce sits back.

“Is that it?” Clark blinks, and Bruce realises he’s had his eyes closed. There’s a fine sheen of sweat over his face.

“Sorry if that hurt, but there’s no way around it,” he says, keeping his voice gruff. “You’ll get used to it.”

Clark shifts a little on the couch. “No, it’s not – it’s not that,” he says. “I – actually, I –”

He doesn’t finish, and Bruce turns away to screw the lid back onto the peroxide. “You’ll have to sleep sitting up,” he says. “You should be warm enough. I’ll leave the heat on.”

Bruce stands, and tosses Clark a blanket. He can sort it out himself, he decides, as he walks down the hall towards his bedroom.

 

*

 

Clark had sat awake most of the night, and doesn’t recall ever actually falling asleep – though he realises that he must have done, because he definitely wakes up, with a jerk that sends pain spiralling though his chest and side. It takes him a moment to remember where he is, and why he’s surrounded by glass and polished concrete, instead of the cramped confines of either his apartment or the hotel room he’s been staying in.

He’s still getting used to the strange _need_ to sleep – he gets tired, even in his usual form, but ten minutes or so in the sun and he feels recharged. Sleep had been optional. The first time he’d sunk into involuntary sleep had been strange – though not frightening. He’d watched Lois drift into sleep enough times, her breath deepening as he’d stroked his thumb across her forehead.

Clark draws in a quick, deep breath.

It’s the waking up Clark is struggling with – that moment of disorientation, the strange, sudden sensation of being dragged out of one world and into another.

And then there’s the fact that his head feels like sludge.

He blinks in the grey light, deciding that it must still be morning – if only just. Someone must be already awake, because there’s a stack of clean blankets sitting next to him on the couch that weren’t there yesterday, and the towel with the melted ice cubes Clark had placed on the coffee table last night has been cleared away.

Clark blinks, recalling suddenly the way Bruce had cleaned up his cuts – the way he’d told him his ribs wouldn’t be healed for weeks. He recalls the implication that, therefore, Bruce regularly moves and fights with similar injuries, before they’re anywhere close to better.

The dab of the disinfectant against his skin had _hurt_ , but even so, Clark had recognised it for a cleansing, healing pain. And…

Clark swallows, but he forces himself to follow the thought to its conclusion.

… And it had been nice. Just to be touched. Even when it was out of medical necessity. It was not having that that’d been part of what had made him feel so lost during all those years of wandering, and… it’s been a while now, too.

Since anything. He knows he’s a tactile person. Lois had teased him about it, and it’s always just something he’s known about himself. He likes being warm. He’s sometimes watched the casual way Ted and Booster slap each other on the back, and has thought…

_All right._

It doesn’t really matter what he’s thought.

Clark licks his lips. “Bruce?” he calls out, tentatively.

He’s not expecting an answer. The house just _feels_ empty. He doesn’t need super senses to know it.

Clark isn’t sure whether his relief outweighs his disappointment at the confirmation, though. Bruce likes to believe he’s impenetrable, but Clark has known him quite some time now, and he can tell when he’s unhappy. Or not… _unhappy_. Not in the usual sense.

But even if he couldn’t tell, it’s not like Bruce’s obsessive love of isolation is some big secret. Clark understands what it cost Bruce to make this offer, and he appreciates it. But _saying_ he appreciates it, or acknowledging that it must ruffle Bruce to have someone else in his house would only make it worse, and draw attention to Bruce’s discomfort. Clark sighs, wincing at the pain it causes in his ribs. He’d like to say thank you. But he knows the best thing he can do is just silently accept Bruce’s hospitality, and try to leave as little evidence of his presence here as possible.

He manages to stand on the second go. He feels stiff from sleeping sitting up, and his ribs, if anything, feel worse than they did yesterday.

Maybe he should get himself some breakfast.

At least the house itself is open plan, so he doesn't have to go hunting around, trying to find the kitchen. Everything there is as cold and precise as the rest of the house – almost like it’s a laboratory, rather than a kitchen. Clark has always associated kitchens with organized chaos – not that his mom ever allowed her kitchen to be _dirty_ , but it was always filled with jars of lemonade, sprigs of herbs she’d picked and kept in bottles of water, and the cookbooks that’d been handed down through generations. Whenever Mom had been cooking there’d been flour everywhere, eggshells in the sink, bread rising on the counter, pie cooling in the window.

There’s nothing of that here – Clark feels kind of like he’s looking at an empty shell of a kitchen, something that’s been put together for show.

Turning, he’s a little surprised when he sees there’s something out of place here after all – there’s a single piece of notepaper that’s been left on the black marble counter. Clark picks it up. Hope briefly flits through his chest that it’s from Bruce.

_Mr. Kent –_

Ahh, no, it’s from Alfred.

_Mr. Kent –_

_It was thought that it would be best to allow you to sleep. When you require breakfast, please contact me via the intercom on the wall to your left._

_\- A._

Clark squints down at the note. _It was thought_ , not _Master Bruce thought_ , or _Master Bruce wanted_. It's the kind of indirect language he uses in articles when he’s saying something without really saying it. _It has been said in Washington circles that_ , or _It has been questioned whether_.

Usually that was followed by some unflattering suggestions about himself or the rest of the League. He’s asked Perry not to assign him these stories, but he can’t remember the last time Perry actually listened to him about anything to do with that.

Clark glances up at the intercom a moment – he doesn’t feel comfortable summoning Alfred from what he’s sure is his tremendously busy day somewhere in the bowels of the Batcave. And he’s perfectly capable of making his own breakfast.

If he can find the fixings in Bruce’s strangely Escher-like kitchen.

Ignoring the pain in his side, Clark cautiously opens cupboards, finding most of them bare; though one contains a set of immaculately stacked crockery. It’s a start, at least, and Clark allows himself a groan of pain as he reaches up for a bowl.

Right. He has a bowl.

The morning is going great.

What kind of cereal would Bruce have in the house? Cheerios? Probably not. Froot Loops? No. Trix? Definitely not.

Clark amuses himself with his contemplations until he finally finds a singular box of Quaker oats on the bottom shelf of the pantry. It’s not exciting, but it’s healthy at least. But he’s going to have to find a saucepan if he wants to make oatmeal, and some salt and milk and –

“I thought I told you to buzz Alfred if you wanted something to eat.”

Clark spins around, jarring his ribs painfully at the sound of Bruce’s voice. He didn’t hear him come in; he knows Bruce is perfectly capable of moving as silently as the shadows, but it’s yet another reminder of just how muted his senses are right now.

“I know,” Clark says. “But I can make my own breakfast.”

Bruce doesn’t respond, he simply moves past Clark, reaching into the pantry to grab the oats. Bruce is wearing the suit he goes to work in – three piece, criminally expensive, a silk scarf draped around his neck. Clark catches a whiff of expensive aftershave, before Bruce turns away again.

“These have probably been here for at least ten years.”

“They haven’t been opened. And the box says use by next year. So…”

Bruce half-turns back to Clark, raising an eyebrow. Clark isn’t sure what meaning he’s supposed to infer from that, but he holds Bruce’s gaze nonetheless. So he might not be comfortable with having Clark in his home, but dammit, he basically forced him to come here – interfered with his work to make it impossible for him to refuse, in fact – and Clark isn't about to let himself be intimidated when he’s here by invitation.

“Am I allowed to eat the oats?”

Bruce shrugs, putting them down on the counter. “Sure, if you want. But I’m going to have Alfred make me some French toast and coffee.”

Clark blinks, opening his mouth and then closing it again. “Haven't you eaten yet?”

“I don’t like eating in the mornings. I just have coffee.”

He opens a drawer and takes out a little foil pod of coffee; he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to call Alfred.

“Those aren’t recyclable, you know,” Clark says, picking up the coffee and holding it up.

“They are now.” Bruce shrugs, plucking the pod from Clark’s fingers. “At least, that’s what the scientists I pay to tell me these things tell me.”

Clark frowns. He can never decide what he thinks of this version of Bruce – the louche, playboy, _saving the planet is great PR, you know_ version. He knows it’s not Bruce, even as it is. And this is what he finds most confusing about him, in many ways – everyone likes to say Batman lives in the shadows, but Clark sometimes wonders if they know just how right they are. Just when he thinks he’s starting to get Bruce pinned down, he moves, changing shape, and Clark realises that he has, once again, been left holding nothing.

“Have you iced your ribs yet this morning?”

Clark starts a little. “Uh, no.”

“You should go do that.”

Bruce’s eyes are on the bruise on his side, and Clark can see something approaching disdain in them.

“Okay,” he says, swallowing, as Bruce hands him a cup of ice.

 

*

 

Bruce knows Clark is stubborn – it’s not as if he wasn’t aware of it before now. Still, he can’t quite bring himself to believe he’s so bloody-mindedly obstinate as _this_.

“Sorry, Alfred, it sounded like you just said Clark went out walking around the lake today.”

Alfred’s facial expression doesn’t change even slightly. “You know perfectly well that I did.”

“And you didn’t stop him?”

Alfred just raises an eyebrow, which is all the response Bruce knows his question deserves. It's not in Alfred’s job description, nor his nature, to stop grown-ass men who ought to know better from taking a walk on a rare sunny afternoon, no matter how little sense of self-preservation that grown-ass man might have. And from what Bruce has seen, Clark’s is verging on _none_.

“If it puts your mind at ease, Master Bruce, Mr. Kent returned to the house a little over an hour ago,” Alfred tells him, and Bruce grinds his teeth a little.

As he turns away, he swears that the pair of them, Clark and Alfred, are running a campaign to drive him out of his mind. He should have seen this coming, he supposes – he really should have known. Alfred doesn’t approve of the solitude he’s been imposing on himself lately, and _Clark_ … well, Clark thinks he’s doing the right thing, when in fact he’s doing the exact opposite of that. Clark doesn’t want to impose, and will think that perhaps Alfred will resent the extra work his presence here represents.

As he climbs the steps that lead up from the Cave and into his study, Bruce thinks about how much he wants to shake him, tell him that his being here isn’t an imposition – not on _Alfred_ , anyway – and the whole point of having him here was to keep him out of trouble. Swooping in to save him every time some escaped villain gets it into their heads to cause trouble is not exactly Bruce’s idea of a good time, after all, and Clark apparently just has one of those faces that cries out to be victimised. Maybe it’s the glasses.

Bruce pushes aside the panel that conceals the door, before carefully replacing it. The house is silent and dark – the golden afternoon has given way to a very black night. Bruce can almost feel it pressing down on him, making him restless in his soul to be out in it – but first he has to deal with the problem of Clark.

“Clark?” Bruce calls out, hearing his voice echoing through the house.

A cold thread winds its way up through his throat when he receives no answer – it’s not like Clark. There’s been a couple of evenings when he’s actually been waiting for him in the study, ready to ask him _How was your day?_ and _Did that meeting you mentioned go well?_ , persisting with it even after Bruce answers him in grunts and monosyllables.

“Clark?” he calls again, walking quickly – though not _too_ quickly – down the hall, his footsteps loud on the polished concrete floor.

Again there’s no response, and Bruce begins to imagine that perhaps Alfred was wrong (even though he never is about who is in the house and when). Knowing Clark, Bruce wouldn’t put it past him to have attracted the attention of some passing terrorists, or else some sea monster swam its way into the lake for the entire purpose of dragging him out to sea. If a tentacle monster can come from another dimension purely for the purpose of… well, for _that_ purpose, then this doesn’t really seem so far-fetched.

In the end, though, it’s none of those things – when Bruce finally does find Clark, it’s in a heap on the couch, sleeping lying down on his stomach the exact way Bruce told him _not_ to, snoring lightly, glasses shoved to one side of his face.

Bruce stares down at him. His gray t-shirt is rucked up a little, showing the bruise that still mars his side. One arm is draped down over the side of the couch, the other is curled under his head.

“Clark. Wake up.” Bruce knows he’s not speaking anywhere near loudly enough to wake him – not in the apparently dead sleep he’s in. But his throat is still tight when he speaks, the panic – the _mild anxiety_ , Bruce corrects himself – of the last few moments still receding.

In the end, he reaches down, touching Clark’s shoulder. “ _Clark._ ”

Bruce wonders how many people have seen Clark, or Superman, like this. Just for once, he looks completely untroubled. His face is unlined – he’s not trying to consider how to solve some problem, or what people might want from him. How he can be the thing people want him to be.

Bruce swallows. He’s about say his name again, when Clark’s eyelids flutter, then open.

“Bruce? I… what’s…”

Clark’s eyes look a little unfocussed, taking a moment to find Bruce’s face in the half-light, then zeroing in on his eyes like a laser. Bruce wonders if he should row back on that observation, given that Clark actually _can_ shoot lasers from his eyes… not that they look like they’re about to start doing that now.

Bruce notes, with some interest, the brown fleck in his left eye – it’s something he hasn’t noticed before, though he can’t really say why. It’s the sort of thing he’d usually notice about someone right away, and file in the back of his mind. It’s the little details like this that mean he can separate one person from the sea of others he meets on a daily basis.

But for some reason, he’s never noticed that about Clark before.

“I was just… I think I was dreaming.”

“That’s nice,” Bruce says, taking his hand off Clark’s shoulder, before, hopefully, Clark realises it’s there. “You should be sitting up. And you shouldn’t have gone out today. Now is not the time for you to be playing Clark Kent, intrepid boy reporter.”

Clark winces a little. “It’s okay,” he says. “My ribs don't even hurt right now.”

He’s slurring a little. Bruce narrows his eyes. “Have you been… drinking?”

Clark shifts a little, evidently trying to maneouver to sit up. “No,” he says, sounding a little sheepish. “No, I… you see, Jimmy gave me… he said it was left over from his uncle’s back surgery, but I didn’t _want_ to take any because he said it was pretty strong stuff, and…”

“Clark,” Bruce says, leaning forward, urgency in his voice. “What did you take?”

“It’s on the table.”

Bruce turns, reaching out to grab the small orange bottle Clark vaguely gestures to. He squints at it in the low light.

“ _Percocet?_ ”

“Yeah. I guess?”

Bruce stares. He’s going to skin Jimmy Olsen alive for this. The passing on a controlled drug aside, just… giving something like this to _Clark_ ….

Bruce takes a deep breath. Or tries to. He tries to remember that Jimmy is not aware that Clark has never taken anything stronger than children’s aspirin before (because why would he ever have needed to), and that he was probably just trying to help a friend who was in pain.

 _Nope,_ he thinks. Didn’t work. He’s still going to kill him.

“Bruce, is everything okay?”

Clark has finally managed to sit up, and is looking at Bruce in concern.

 _No,_ Bruce wants to say. _Everything is_ not _okay. I have a powerless Superman crashed out on my couch and I have a photographer I have to kill and this is_ not _how I planned to spend my evening._

“Bruce?”

Clark wavers a little, reaching out to Bruce’s face, missing, and almost sliding off the leather couch. Bruce catches him, mindful of his ribs – but there’s not a lot he can do, really, except grab him under the armpits before he falls in a heap on the floor.

“Just… sit still. Stay there,” he mutters as he props Clark up on the couch, trying to arrange him in a stable position. “Stop moving around.”

“I can’t… I hate not being able to do things anymore,” Clark murmurs after a moment. “But I also love it at the same time. I suppose that doesn’t make sense.” Clark pauses, and his eyes drift shut. “I can’t hear things, I can’t see things. Not like I used to. But… it makes me realise…”

Whatever Clark realises, Bruce never finds out, because in the next second Clark has drifted off to sleep again, lips parting slightly as he breathes.

Bruce stays for a while, watching, trying to figure out if Clark is likely to list over during the night and if so to which side. In the end, he decides he’s fine, and stands. The night is still young, after all, and he has work to d—

“Bruce?”

He draws in a deep breath.

“What?”

“I think I’d really like to take a bath.”

Bruce is glad the room is dark, because he really doesn’t need Clark seeing the journey his face goes on in that moment. “The bathroom’s down the hall.”

“Will you… I mean, can you just help me get up? I feel kind of….”

Bruce closes his eyes, licks his lips. There’s a thousand things he _could_ say, but in the end, he only says, “Okay.”

Clark is heavier than he looks – he’s shorter than Bruce, and though he’s mostly muscle, Bruce outweighs him significantly there too. But the dead weight of him against Bruce’s side is still a surprise, and Bruce has to drag him most of the way down the hallway to the bathroom. He props him on a stool and then turns on the faucet, the water gushing out, steaming.

Bruce trails a hand in the water, checking the temperature as the tub fills. He can’t remember the last time he used it. He never has time. Alfred has drawn him baths in the past, but they’ve always been left to cool, and eventually he’d stopped trying. If Bruce is going to lie down, he’ll do it in bed. And if he’s going to wash, he has the shower.

He glances up to find Clark watching him quietly, eyelids drooping slightly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice barely audible above the rush of the water.

Bruce looks away. “For what?”

Clark gestures, a little helplessly. “For… this. For being here. I know you like your space. I don’t like that you have to….”

Bruce doesn’t answer. He stays focused on the water temperature. “Can you take care of the rest yourself?”

Clark blinks. “I, uh, yeah.”

Somehow, Bruce rather doubts that, but – well, he’s not going to _undress_ him –

There’s no need, because Clark is apparently still feeling just _great_ from the Percocet, and he stands up by himself, slipping his t-shirt over his head. Bruce stands, and as Clark’s face is briefly obscured, allows himself to check the bruise on his side. It’s better – he heals fast, even without his powers – and his cuts and scrapes are looking good too.

It’s only when Bruce realises that his eyes are lingering, sliding over the lines of Clark’s body, the roll and bunch of his muscles, that he coughs and looks away. It’s not the first time he’s caught himself like this. But he's always sure he catches himself quickly.

Especially because as Clark either has no inherent sense of modesty or because he’s still drifting around on a drugged-out high, he’s now removing his sweats.

Bruce removes himself just as quickly, striding to the bathroom door and placing it firmly between himself and Clark. A second later he hears the water splash as Clark gets in, and Bruce thinks of him easing himself into the water slowly, letting it soak into his muscles, easing the aches and pains he’s accumulated during his time of being human.

Bruce swallows. He almost glances around – he doesn’t want Clark slipping and cracking his head open – but then he doesn’t.

He just stands where he is, listening to the water lapping against the sides of the tub, and against Clark’s skin.

“Bruce?” Clark sounds like he’s almost expecting Bruce not to answer.

“I’m still here,” he says.

 

*

 

The first thing Clark is aware of when he drifts up from the depths of sleep is _warmth_. It settles into his muscles, layers itself over his sore ribs, making him feel safe and drowsy.

Still only half-awake, he swallows, the scurf of his dream still clinging to his mind. It’s already starting to slip away, but Clark can recall the phantom sensation of hands on his skin, the soft wetness of lips on his, and the sweet, dull ache of –

Clark jerks awake suddenly, opening his eyes and staring around wildly. He’s not anywhere he recognises, though after a moment in which his heart pounds in his chest, he realises he’s looking out over the lake in the very early morning. White mist is rising, the sunlight weak and milky as it struggles out from between the clouds.

He’s not in the lounge though – while this room is just as clean and sparse and sterile, he’s sitting at a different angle, there’s clean sheets pulled up to his waist, and pillows keeping him propped up, and….

_Oh._

He’s in a bed. Clark blinks. He wishes he could get the hang of this whole ‘waking up’ thing. It’s been _weeks_ , after all, and it shouldn’t still freak him out this badly. It doesn’t help that he can remember very little of the evening before. Everything is hazy. It’s like pushing blocks of smoke around in his head as he tries to recall it.

Even without that, it’s strange to so suddenly go from one state to another, with no control over it. When he slept before, it was because he chose to, and he woke up on command. This sudden jerking awake, the not knowing for a moment if this is real or whether he’s still dreaming, if the warmth and the hands on his skin were real, or…

Clark shifts uncomfortably on the bed.

… And the fact that his body still feels the after effects of things he now _knows_ weren’t really happening. He glances down, swallowing. The sheets are tenting around his erection, his blood feeling thick and heavy. Drawing in a deep breath, he wonders if he can sneak into the bathroom before Bruce realises he’s awake and just –

“Sleep well?”

Clark jerks around, jarring his ribs, the pain slicing through him, which at least serves to take some of the pressure out of his cock. He sits rigidly on the bed as his eyes finally find Bruce, sitting in a large wingback chair in a corner of the room, still in his suit pants and shirt.

“Uh,” is all he can muster up to say at first.

Bruce is lounging back in the chair, looking rumpled, his eyes trained on Clark’s face.

Clark is digging is fingertips into the mattress so hard he’s pretty sure he’s making permanent dents in it.

_Maybe he hasn’t noticed. Maybe he… uh… I mean, I’m sure he hasn’t noticed…_

Clark licks his lips. “Pretty well,” he says, and he knows his voice sounds a little strained.

Bruce is just staring him directly in the face, eyes looking neither down nor up nor side to side.

“Um, how long have you been sitting there?” Clark finally asks.

Bruce doesn’t answer. Not immediately, anyway. He just keeps on looking at Clark.

“I mean, you didn’t sleep _there_ did you?” Clark asks. “Because I –”

“No,” Bruce interrupts. “I did not sleep here.”

Clark’s mind spins as he tries to figure out the implications of that statement. Between the shock and the fact his cock _still_ doesn’t seem to be going down and the horror of realising Bruce has been sitting there while he – while he –

A shard of memory from the night before suddenly pierces his consciousness. Clark can feel heat rushing into his face.

He can recall sitting in a bath, watching the water lapping over his toes, snorting awake suddenly as his nose began to sink below the waterline. He can recall murmuring some nonsense as strong hands pull him up out of the bath, the scrub of a towel over his skin as he leans against a broad shoulder, and then – _Oh God…._

Clark’s mind races without a single coherent thought. “Bruce, I –”

Bruce cuts him off by standing, before turning away and looking out over the lake. “I flushed the rest of the Percocet down the toilet, before you ask,” he says, his voice low. “And there’s bacon for breakfast.”

 

*

 

Clark keeps his eyes fixed down at his plate as he eats. He hasn’t spoken – breakfast was already on the plate when he came out, and Bruce has spent the entire time reading first the Gotham Gazette, before turning his attention to the Gotham Globe.

It’s the most awkward situation Clark has ever been in.

He just wishes he could remember more about what _happened_ yesterday – he recalls that after days of being cooped up inside, the sunshine on the lake had looked so beautiful that he just couldn’t resist going out in it. The trees that surrounded Bruce’s home had revealed a small path that wound through them once he got closer, and after that, he’d kept walking, feeling the warmth of the sun on his skin, and knowing that it was _only_ warmth.

It had been… strange. Good.

But when he’d finally arrived back at the lake house, his ribs had been killing him. He’d decided he wouldn’t take one of the painkillers Jimmy had given him, but then, he didn’t want to put Bruce to any trouble, and he’d _know_ he was in pain the second he looked at him….

And it was after that that things got murky.

Bruce rustles the newspaper as he turns the page, flicking it so it stands upright, covering his face.

Clark thinks he’d give an awful lot to have his x-ray vision back right now, if only so he could see Bruce’s expression.

It’s not really in his nature not to talk about things – or not, at least, to try. But in this, he’s not sure he even has the words to begin. Bruce might be the world’s greatest detective, but you don’t need to be even a pretty good detective to figure out what happened last night. Bruce had pulled him out of the bath when he’d fallen asleep in it, dried him off, and put him to bed. In, what Clark can only assume, was _his_ bed. He doesn’t think this place, for all its size, even has a guest room (which, he supposes, is a reasonable excuse for Bruce to never have guests here. Or at least ones who don’t sleep in his bed).

Clark swallows, before lifting another forkful of bacon and toast to his mouth. He _could_ talk about this with Bruce, he supposes. He _could_ force Bruce to say something about it, or to brush off his actions with a curl of his lip and a sarcastic comment.

But he won’t do that. He’s not that cruel.

It’s just one of the things that being dead for months will do for you – even more so the weeks afterwards, when you realise that you’ll have to rebuild yourself from scratch, after the rest of the world had stopped thinking about you. Or at least, they’d stopped thinking about _Clark Kent_ , even as they built monuments to Superman and covered them in flowers.

This hasn't been the greatest time in Clark’s life. There’s so many things he misses, and which he doesn’t feel like he’ll get back – not easily, anyway. There are lots of things that slip away when he wakes up, and things that he won’t even admit to himself that he wants to get back.

Clark closes his eyes briefly. For a moment, he imagines he can feel that same warmth on his skin – the brief touch of hands, lips, anything at all.

“Finished?” Bruce asks, abruptly asks, laying aside the newspaper.

Clark jerks his head up. He hasn’t, but he’s not hungry. “Yeah.”

“Good. Then I figure we can head out.”

 

*

 

Clark isn’t looking at him as he drives out from the lake, heading out into the wider Wayne estate, and Bruce can’t honestly say he’s surprised.

He doesn’t especially feel like talking himself. He didn’t especially want to have to pluck Clark out of the bath last night either, but it hadn’t been avoidable. He’d thought about waking Alfred and calling him up here, but then had decided that, if anything, would be even weirder.

It wasn’t a violation of Clark’s personal space if it was to prevent him from drowning, Bruce reasoned. It didn’t matter how much he had to keep his eyes averted, or how warm Clark’s breath against his neck as he hauled him out of the bathroom had been. Bruce Wayne doesn’t deal in irrelevancies. And all of that is irrelevant.

Bruce is sure Clark had to have at least pieced some of it together by now. Unless he’s so pigheaded as to believe he somehow managed to get _himself_ out of the bath, and Bruce can’t quite bring himself to believe that even Clark is that ridiculously stubborn.

He really hadn’t intended to be there when Clark woke up. Bruce had told him – or he’d _implied_ , anyway – that he hadn’t slept. Which was true, despite the fact that, as Alfred had observed on many occasions, he could sleep on the roof of a moving freight train, if he had to. He’d drifted into a light doze, however, and had only woken when he’d heard Clark breathlessly murmuring his name.

His heart had been in his throat in an instant, eyes open, awake, alert. If Clark needed him, he’d –

Clark had still been asleep, however, tucked in where Bruce had left him, propped up on the approximately one hundred pillows Alfred thought were necessary for proper bed maintenance. His head had been thrown back, his lips had been parted, and –

Bruce coughs. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Clark turn his head towards him. He doesn’t look back at him.

He doesn’t know what Clark remembers. Maybe nothing. The one thing that _is_ clear is that Clark isn’t in his right mind right now – being high on painkillers aside, he’s lost his powers and been roughed up in ways that Bruce is pretty sure he’s never experienced before.

Or not… never.

Bruce grimaces. He doesn’t need reminding. And he _certainly_ doesn’t need reminding of the way Clark had looked at him as Diana had explained how Bruce had put together the League, the understanding that had slowly dawned in his eyes as she spoke. He hadn’t been looking at Diana, even though she was the one speaking. He’d been watching Bruce, until Bruce had stood and walked away.

He’d been shaken up at the time.

He’d watched Clark’s funeral. He’d been there. He’d watched Superman’s televised state procession, even if the coffin for that one was empty. And then, there he was, apparently just having walked it off.

Bruce has spent what’s probably a longer time than most contemplating death. Contemplating how he’d failed to stop it. He’s never been given a second chance before. And he’s not going to fuck it up now, just because Clark is giving him every opening to.

He is not, as Bruce has already observed, in his right mind just now.

Anyone with eyes in their head can see how desperately, scrabblingly lonely Clark is right now. Bruce is all too aware of what loneliness can do to someone – how it makes you see things that aren’t really there, or possibilities that don't truly exist.

He stops the car when they’re in view of Wayne Manor, and Bruce gets out without a word. Clark follows him after a moment, slowly and carefully. His ribs are healing faster than Bruce expected – it’s possible that part of being Clark means that he just heals quickly, powers or not – but he’s still nowhere near better.

For a while, Bruce stands and looks out at the dark block of his former home. He knows every pit, every blackened brick. He had been going to drive Clark out there and feed him some fluff he could send to Perry to shore things up, but the idea of that now seems… unwholesome. He knows how Clark would see it. He’d assign too much meaning, and find a way of asking the awkward questions that Bruce would prefer to avoid.

“You said to Perry you were going to rebuild,” Clark says, his voice soft.

Bruce doesn’t answer him for some time, before he shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Why not?”

Bruce breathes in.

He’s already doing it. This was the other reason Bruce had been wary of having him here, or in the lake house, or in fact anywhere too close to him. Clark has a way of worming his way in under your guard, before you’ve even realised that he’s doing it – and then, before you know it, he’s insinuated himself into places he shouldn’t be.

The process has already started.

Bruce grimaces a little as he recalls jerking out of his doze, seeing Clark in his bed, the expression on his face, the bulge beneath the bedding.

He’ll have Alfred burn those sheets, he thinks. He doesn’t need this. He didn't ask for it.

Clark’s unanswered question still hangs in the still air between them, but Bruce thinks he probably knew before he asked it that he wasn’t going to get an answer.

The wind picks up a little, stirring the dead grass around them, and Bruce doesn’t feel the need to say anything at all.

“Bruce, about this morning.”

He knew it couldn’t last. He’d just hoped it would last a _little_ longer than this.

“What about it?”

Out of the tail of his eye, he sees Clark’s head flick towards him, uncertain.

“I just think we should talk about –” the pause is almost palpable “– how much trouble I’m putting you to.”

 _Well, there it is._ Bruce wonders if Clark even knows he’s doing it. Now he either has to deny that Clark’s causing him any trouble, or he has to tell him to leave so Bruce can get his house/space/life back. This is what Clark does.

In the end, Bruce opts out of doing either. He just turns away and goes back to the car, waiting for Clark to figure it out for himself that they’re leaving.

Once they’re both back in the car and have started down the road again, Bruce turns to him. “I have a meeting today, and then a function I can’t skip. I’ll be home late. If you need anything, Alfred will be around all day. Don’t try to cook for yourself – my flatware costs more than your salary and I don’t need you breaking it.”

Clark doesn’t answer, but Bruce can see him drawing his eyebrows together, and he might even be chewing his lower lip.

 

*

 

Later, once Bruce has left for the day and Clark is on his own in the lake house, he slips out of the front door and retraces their morning journey out towards the ruins of Wayne Manor. He’s sure Alfred is monitoring his every move from places unknown within the Batcave or wherever it is within the walls of Bruce’s home he spends his days, and if he’s doing something wrong he’s pretty sure he’ll come and stop him.

Nonetheless, given that Bruce specifically told him to stay put, _of course_ he’s doing something wrong.

He walks along the track, ignoring the piercing pain in his side every time he breathes in. He knows this is exactly what caused him trouble yesterday, but he’s never been good at just sitting and waiting.

And… he doesn’t really want to be in the lake house right now, anyway. He’d say that it reminds him too much of Bruce, but in fact it’s the opposite. There’s _nothing_ there that’s Bruce. It’s all hard edges and cold surfaces and impersonal spaces. It’s a show house. Clark used to think it was just him that didn’t belong there, but now he’s starting to think that Bruce doesn’t either. He inhabits it, but he doesn’t live there.

He crests a slight rise, leaving the cover of the trees that surround the lake house, and the darkness of Wayne Manor becomes visible on the horizon. _That’s_ where Bruce lives, Clark thinks – in every way except the one that’s visible to outside eyes. The lake house is almost designed to be everything that Bruce, when he’s Batman, shies away from – there’s not a single shadow in the whole place, everything is light, everything is transparent. There’s nowhere to hide there.

Clark swallows. The manor looms, standing in the middle of its empty field. He takes one or two steps towards it, moving off the dirt road. But something stops him before he gets too far – the knowledge that if he’s truly concerned about violating Bruce’s personal space, he’s definitely about to do that now.

He’d avoided talking about it this morning. Clark had wanted to tell him… _something_ , anyway. He doesn’t know exactly what. Mainly, he just wanted Bruce to talk to him, tell him that –

The first blow knocks the wind out of him, coming, as it does, to the sore side of his body, right in the ribs that’re still healing. Clark staggers, gasping for breath, and tries to turn – but he feels arms around his shoulders, forcing his arms down to his sides, and a bag is shoved down over his head before he can move. He’ll never get used to this – the slowness of his movements, the way he can’t hear things coming. The smell of the bag over his head is musty and terribly strong, and the dry material gets sucked into his mouth as he tries to breathe.

Then there’s a solid _clunk_ to the side of his head, and everything goes black.

 

*

 

“… look like Bruce fucking Wayne to you?”

The sound of voices drifts into Clark’s consciousness. Everything’s still fuzzy as hell, but at least, he thinks, the bag isn’t over his head anymore. Even though his sight is still dimmed, he can breathe easily, though his mouth is dry and his throat scratchy.

He swallows painfully, then tries to move his arm.

Only to find he can’t, because he’s tied to a chair. That would explain why all his muscles ache, and his hands and feet feel numb. The ropes around his wrists and ankles are far too tight, and, he realises, this is restricting the blood flow. This is what happens when humans don’t have adequate blood supply to their nerves – this weird tingling sensation. Clark knows it’s called _parasthesia_ and that if it goes on too long it can cause permanent damage, but this is the first time he’s ever felt it.

He doesn’t really know what to make of it. It… hurts, but it’s not unpleasant.

Especially not compared to the burning ball of pain that is his head.

“Hey, he was exactly where you said he’d be – out by the old Wayne place, just wandering around. We snuck up on him from behind and shoved the bag over his head, so how were supposed to know? We did it _exactly_ like you said.”

Slowly, Clark opens his eyes a crack. It’s dark here. It smells dusty, and the floor is cold concrete. That’s as much as Clark can tell without moving his head. By the way the nearby voices are echoing, though, he can tell they’re in a considerably large space – probably a warehouse of some description.

“Except you kidnapped the wrong fucking guy!” It’s the first voice again, virtually screaming now, voice rocketing up several decibels and making Clark wince. “You were supposed to get Bruce Wayne – you know, the one with the money? The one who’s worth a fucking five million ransom, at least? Instead you kidnapped… I don’t know, who the fuck even is this guy?”

The voices halt, and in the shadows, Clark can hear footsteps. They halt just short of him, and he can sense them looking down at him.

“Is it someone Wayne might pay to get back in one piece?”

Clark almost feels like laughing. He’s been hauled up to the top of a skyscraper by Grodd, threatened by Bane, and almost dragged into another dimension for some tentacled alien to have their way with, but in the end, it had been common hoodlums after a ransom that’d gotten him.

“Wait a minute. I know this guy.”

Clark tenses at the tone of the voice – the certainty in it.

And then, it hits him: he doesn’t have his glasses. They must have fallen off in the struggle.

Clark has to suppress the urge to swallow heavily.

 _This is very bad._ He knows Bruce would stare at him steadily and tell him that that’s an understatement, but without his powers, there’s not a lot he can do. He can just sit here and play possum, and hope that, given he’s not bursting out of the ropes and taking off into the sky, the thugs just come to the conclusion that he’s an ordinary man who happens to bear an _awfully_ close resemblance to Superman, but isn’t.

“No, you’re right. I know this guy. Where’ve I seen him before?”

There’s silence. They’re clearly contemplating it. Clark tries to do nothing to give away the fact he’s conscious.

“Oh, I know – it’s that reporter guy. What is it? Kent? Clark Kent? The Daily Planet guy.”

“The one who wrote that big story on Senator Evall and got John and Jerry put away, and cost us a good bit of business besides?”

“That’s the one.”

Clark tenses. He remembers that. Alex Evall had been as corrupt has they came, and he’d been hiring thugs to terrorise Planet staff and sabotage their printers and vans so he could buy it up. Clarks’s exposé had put a lot of them in jail, Evall included. And, apparently, some of these men’s associates. They don’t sound too happy about it.

For a moment, he’s not sure if this is better or worse; before he can think about it for too long, however, there’s a _crack_ to the side of his skull and then his already aching head is reverberating with pain.

He’s not used to this – the idea that an ordinary man’s punch can send his head spinning. Of course, it’s happened before, but Bruce is not an ordinary man. Bruce is… Bruce. To compare him with anyone else just doesn't make sense.

Clark blinks, pain whiting out his vision, and he has to gasp for breath.

“Wake up, asshole.”

There’s a hand bunched in his shirt, yanking him forward.

“Come on – wake up. I have some questions for you.”

Clark looks up, finding himself staring into a pair of cruel eyes where they peer out from behind the balaclava that covers the rest of the man’s face.

“What were you doing on the Wayne estate?” As he speaks, he raises a knife in front of his face; a warning to Clark as to what will happen if he doesn’t talk.

“I was – I’m a reporter,” he says. The men know who he is – it’s pointless to lie.

“And?”

“I’m researching a story.” Again, not a lie. “About Bruce Wayne – he’s a public figure.”

“Oh, yeah?” The two men exchange a glance. “One of those little dick-sucking pieces the Planet does for anyone who pays?”

“That’s not – no,” Clark says, deciding it would be better to give a definitive answer rather than try to argue with them that that’s not how journalism works.

“Know him well, do you? Bruce Wayne?” The man has leaned back slightly and is playing with the knife, balancing it on his knuckles before flipping it under his palm.

Clark knows what they’re trying to get him to do; what they want him to say. _Yes, I do know Mr Wayne. Yes, he’ll pay. Just get me on the phone with him._

“No,” he says again. “Like I said, it's just a story. I don’t know him, except to say we’ve met.”

As far as _Bruce Wayne_ and _Clark Kent_ go, it’s the truth. They’ve brushed shoulders, inevitably. But that’s it.

And Clark doesn’t need anything that might get Bruce caught up in this.

He knows he should be more frightened. The men are clearly fully capable of and willing to hurt him. He’s as vulnerable to bullets and knives as anyone else right now.

But the main thought in his head is that if something happens to him here, then Bruce will never forgive himself, even if nothing about this is his fault – the blame lay entirely with Clark. Bruce had told him to stay in the lake house, but he was the one who had chosen to wander off.

“Pity,” says the man with the knife. “That was going to be your one and only ticket out of here – at least, with your throat unslit.”

Clark doesn't have time to react. In the next second, the man’s hand is around his jaw, forcing his head up, the point of the knife digging in to the skin below his ear.

“Stay still and this won’t take a second,” the man grunts, as Clark tries to pull his head away.

In the second that follows, there’s a _bang_ and then everything goes white – for a second, Clark thinks the man has done it, and this is what bleeding out feels like: sickening dizziness, inability to breathe, and utter blindness.

But in a moment it comes to him that he’s still breathing; he can still feel the ropes around his wrists. He blinks, and his vision slowly clears – it’s enough, at least, to see the dark shape that descends from the high ceiling of the warehouse, whipping around the two vague shapes that Clark guesses must be his captors. They drop like stones, feet yanked out from under them. Through the ringing in his ears, Clark hears the muffled sound of punches, and then a cry of pain, followed by an animal roar of fury.

“Br – Batman,” he calls out, barely able to hear his own voice – he’s unsure if Bruce has heard him, or if he knows he’s still alive.

He still can’t see and can’t hear when he feels Bruce’s hands on his face – fingers sliding over his cheekbones and thumbs pressed to his temples, before his head is moved to the side, pulling at the small wound the knife made beneath his jaw.

“I’m okay,” he says, but again, he can hardly hear himself, and he doesn’t know if he’s conveying the information Bruce needs. But if he’s here, touching Clark’s face, then he can’t be punching the goons anymore – which is the main thing Clark wants to be sure of.

Clark feels Bruce’s hands slide to the back of his neck, but then they’re gone, until Clark feels them tugging on the ropes that bind his hands.

 

*

 

“I wasn’t worried,” Clark says.

“Then you were stupid,” Bruce growls.

They’re back at the lake house. Bruce spirited him there in record time; Clark’s vision was still clearing after the flash bomb Bruce had thrown when he’d been helped out of the car and hustled through the cave. There’s blood on his shirt from the cut by his throat, even if the wound itself is taped closed and covered with gauze now, and Bruce is tending to the gash on his temple where he’d been hit.

“I can’t be everywhere,” Bruce continues after a moment, voice gravelly with anger. “Even _you_ can’t be everywhere. If Alfred hadn’t noticed you were missing and managed to track the car, I don’t know what would have –”

“But he did,” Clark interrupts, wincing as Bruce dabs peroxide on the cut on his cheek. “And you found me.”

Bruce’s eyes narrow. “Well, I’m so glad you see me as your personal rescue service,” he says, voice quiet. “It must make you feel much more secure when you go out to take unnecessary and stupid risks.”

“It’s not like that,” Clark tries to protest, even as he knows Bruce is, at least partially, in the right. “I didn’t think it was a risk. I was just going for a walk.”

“How could it not be a risk?” Bruce asks. “You don’t have your powers, and you attract villains like flies, apparently. Didn’t you think there was a _reason_ I told you stay where you were?”

Clark swallows. As much as he wants to argue, Bruce is right. Even after everything that’s happened, he’s still too used to being able to do exactly what he likes. He can see the strain on Bruce’s face, just barely visible behind the anger, and he closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

Bruce doesn't answer him. When Clark opens his eyes again, he’s sitting back, regarding him quietly. “Don’t you think,” he says, “that I might have a better reason than most to want to keep you alive this time?”

Clark blinks, staring at him. _A better reason…?_ For a moment, his thoughts start to get away from him, imagining what reason that’s _better than most_ Bruce might have for wanting him unharmed – until the words _this time_ penetrate his brain, and he realises that Bruce simply means he still feels that he owes him after the Doomsday episode, that, even now, he blames himself for what happened.

Clark isn’t sure why he’s surprised, or why that should elicit from him a rather hollow laugh.

“What?” Bruce asks, clearly irritated.

“You aren’t responsible for me, Bruce,” Clark says. “You don’t have to – you’re not to blame. For any of it. You didn’t know. _I_ didn’t know.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything. As Clark watches his eyes, he realises that he’s staring at the large bloodstain on the front of his shirt. It’s still damp, and it smells coppery – even with his reduced olfactory powers, Clark can still smell that.

“You can’t –” Clark tries again, but Bruce cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

“I did what I did,” he says, looking away. “ _You_ might at least respect the fact that not everyone gets a second chance.”

Clark feels his heart in his throat. In a flash, he understands what Bruce means by _second chances_ , and it makes him sick to think about how glib he’s been.

For a long moment, he doesn’t speak. Bruce doesn’t catch his eye again, but simply stands, turning to walk out of the room.

“Bruce, wait –”

Clark jerks up, ignoring the way it makes his head spin and his ribs throb, and catches Bruce’s arm before he can get too far. He’s still wearing the Batsuit, though the cowl is pulled down and he’s taken his gloves off. The thick material is cold beneath Clark’s palm.

Bruce stops, but he otherwise doesn’t respond. Clark tries to summon the words he wants, but they don’t come – instead, he simply slides his hand down Bruce’s arm, until he feels the hot skin of his palm beneath his touch.

“Please,” Clark says, trying to turn to look at Bruce’s eyes. “Don’t go.”

 

*

 

Clark’s hand is warm against his. Bruce briefly closes his eyes, and turns away slightly. He’d really prefer not to look into Clark’s eyes right now – he doesn’t think he can stand to see the rising hope he knows he’ll see in them. He knows he’ll see the beginnings of a hopeful smile. Because of course he’ll be smiling – even with the cut on his cheek and the gash on his forehead and that wound by his throat, Clark will still be trying – still sending out small feelers to Bruce to test what he can do, and how far he can move before Bruce will push him away.

Bruce isn’t even sure he knows he’s doing it. In fact, he’s quite sure he doesn’t. Of all the things Clark is, manipulative isn’t one of them.

So much of Bruce is tempted to give in to what he knows Clark is so readily offering him. For a moment, he almost wants to laugh – even without his powers, Clark is still _Superman_ , and it seems bizarre to him to know that in this second, he, Bruce Wayne, Batman, holds so much power over him. There’s a thousand things he could say or do next; some of them kind, others kinder still, even though Clark may not appreciate it right at this very moment.

This is the problem with Clark, though: it’s the same problem that’s seen him hauled every which way over the past few weeks, and threatened more times than Bruce can count.

He’s not frightened of the things he should be.

“Bruce?” Clark says again, and this time his fingers squeeze a little harder on his hand.

Bruce closes his eyes again. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” Clark says again.

 _Yes, because that’s what this situation warrants – more_ apologies, Bruce thinks viciously, and almost tugs his hand away.

In the end, however, he simply shakes his head. “Christ, I need a drink.”

He – gently – slides his hand from Clark’s and makes his way across the room, to where there’s a decanter of scotch and two glasses sitting on a desk nearby, and Bruce pours himself a drink, tossing it back before turning to Clark.

“Do you want one?” A thought occurs to him. “Can you even _get_ drunk?”

Clark looks a little bewildered, his eyes going to the decanter before returning to Bruce. He licks his lips. “I _can_ ,” he says. “Even with my powers. I just thought it wouldn’t be… very wise.”

He has a point there, Bruce has to admit. A drunk Superman stumbling around Metropolis, trying to ride the subway because he knows he shouldn’t be either driving _or_ flying right now is… all right, it’s possibly one of the more amusing mental images he’s had of Clark.

“Fair enough,” Bruce says, pouring himself another glass and then knocking that one back too. It’s nowhere near enough to get him drunk – he has decades of drinking under his belt – but the warmth that coils through his veins is a welcome break from the weeks of cold tension he’s been living with. And then the awkwardness this morning. And, hell, any of the things that Clark has been subtly intimating.

It’s not that he thinks Clark is trying to _seduce_ him; it’s that Clark hasn’t even pulled all the strings together in his mind yet about what he thinks or what he wants.

He is, for the first time, vulnerable physically as well as emotionally, and this is, perhaps, forcing him to face up to some of the things that have lain dormant within him for some time now. Ever since he woke up in his grave, crawled his way out of it, and found that the life he had built for himself as _Clark Kent_ had been pretty much blasted to hell.

Bruce had been keeping a watchful eye on him. And he’d thought, when the time came, he’d have some way of dealing with it.

However, as per usual whenever Clark gets involved in anything, his best-laid plans go completely to hell.

It doesn’t help that Clark’s bouts of introspection more usually focus not on what _he_ wants, but how he can be what other people want him to be – how he can live up to the expectations placed on him. Bruce knows that sooner or later, he’ll figure it out, and he’s been dreading the day he looks up and sees the apology in Clark’s eyes; the one that says _I’m sorry, but that’s – I mean, you’re my_ friend _, but I…._

Now that he realises that perhaps he’ll look up and not see an apology after all, but instead warmth and willingness, Bruce isn’t sure which one terrifies him more.

Bruce runs a hand over his face, picks up the decanter and sits down heavily in an armchair, some distance away from Clark. The Batsuit isn’t the most comfortable thing to lounge around in, but he’s too bone-tired to get up and strip off now.

Clark, on the other chair, is waiting, quiet and patient, and Bruce can see the question in his eyes.

“It’s fine, Clark,” he says eventually, his voice hoarse. “Forget about it. You’re right – nothing happened.”

Clark frowns. “No, I was careless. And I won’t do it again – it was my fault. I’ll stay in until my powers return. I –”

He stops talking when Bruce starts laughing, low and throaty. His throat feels a little warm from the scotch, a little burned.

“What?” Clark asks, looking disgruntled.

“Just stop arguing with me,” Bruce says. “I say you were careless, you say you weren’t. I tell you to forget about it, and you immediately start arguing that you’re the one to blame. I swear, Clark, you can be the most contrary person.”

Clark opens his mouth – he’s just _itching_ to argue, Bruce can tell, but that would just prove his point – before snapping it shut again, looking away.

“Why do you do this, Bruce?” Clark’s voice when he does eventually speak again is soft.

“Do what?” Bruce knows what he’s talking about. And this is Clark all over – always rushing headlong into things. He never stops to _think_.

Clark looks at him, his eyes pale in the meager white light of the cave. “You know what.”

 _Typically direct,_ Bruce thinks. But he doesn’t say anything.

“I… asked you to stay. I didn’t want to argue with you,” Clark says.

Bruce watches as Clark’s gaze dips from his eyes to his lips and hovers there for just the briefest second, before he raises it again.

He’s suddenly very, very tired. Running around after Clark is a full-time job, and he doesn’t need even more work.

“What _did_ you want, then?”

Clark doesn't say anything. “I –” he begins, before cutting himself off.

Bruce closes his eyes, the silence thickening the air between them. He hears Clark stand and take a few steps, and when he opens his eyes again, he almost expects to see him heading towards the stairs leading to the entrance of the house. But instead, Clark is standing in front of him, slightly unsteady, hair disheveled, covered in scratches and bandages and blood staining his shirt, but with a look in his eyes that tells Bruce he’s finally figured it out.

When he sits down on the low coffee table in front of him and leans forward, Bruce doesn’t look away. All the little strings that have been tugging at Clark’s mind have finally been pulled together.

Bruce knows he should laugh at him, tell him cruelly to pull himself together and go get himself a _girlfriend_ if he’s really that lonely. That of all the other things Clark demands of him, he wants _this_ too – and that’s really all it would take, even _implying_ that this is an imposition, and Clark would fold himself back up again, stand, and never mention it again.

As he’s always said – there’s kindness and then there’s _kindness_.

“Bruce,” Clark says, his voice desperate and soft, as he raises his hand to Bruce’s face, running his thumb over his cheekbone.

Clark’s breath is warm on his face, and they hang there, as if in suspension, for just a moment, before Clark’s lips are on his, hungrily, inelegantly, pushing his mouth open with his tongue.

Bruce knows he should stop it – and could, if he wanted to – but there’s only so much a man can take. And Clark, with all the warmth and willingness that Bruce has feared he’ll look up and see in his eyes, is kissing him, his hand on his face while Bruce’s own come up to grip his shoulders, as if trying to anchor him where he is.

Clark may not be an elegant or especially skilled kisser, but for all that, he makes up for it with the kind of aching sincerity that Bruce hasn’t felt in a long time – is not sure, now that he thinks about it, he has ever truly felt. Clark’s mouth is hot and deep around his tongue, his teeth grazing gently over his lower lip.

When Bruce’s hand slides lower and finds the bare skin of his flank beneath the hem of his shirt, Clark sucks in a breath and pulls back slightly.

“Um, I – my ribs –”

It takes a moment for Bruce to remember – _Clark’s bruised fucking ribs_ – and then he laughs, humourlessly and coldly.

He sees a confused expression cross Clark’s face. “What?”

Bruce shakes his head. “Nothing.”

He kisses him again, because he doesn’t want to hear the question that’ll inevitably come out of Clark’s mouth next. It’s done now – and if he’s in for a penny, he may as well be in for a pound. For the moment, at least.

Once again, it’s deep and slow, Clark unguardedly opening his mouth and letting Bruce guide him, falling into him fully and completely.

Bruce only pulls back when he feels that Clark is shivering – long, strange shudders that seem to pass along the whole length of his body.

“What’s happening?” Bruce asks.

Clark’s eyes are still shut, squeezed together, his lips still slightly parted, swollen and wet.

“I only kissed L… I mean, I’ve only kissed before when I was… when I had my powers. This is… different.”

Bruce takes a moment to study him, the breathless way he’s sucking in air, the slight shake in his hands – _Of course it would be,_ he thinks vaguely, with the part of his brain that isn’t crowded with other things. _Why wouldn’t it be?_

“Do it again,” Clark murmurs, before his hand has wrapped around the back of Bruce’s head, and he pulls him forward once more.

 

*

 

Clark can feel the shivers passing over his body, and he lets it happen, sinking into the kiss. He has been slotting things into place in his head: the dream, the waking up hard, the way Bruce pulled him out of the bathtub and put him into bed – _his_ bed.

He knows what Bruce is like – that any hold Clark imagines he has on him from time to time, that anything he imagines he might know about him, is cut away the next time he tries to grasp it, and instead he finds himself scrabbling against Bruce’s granite-hard surface.

He gives himself away, though, in ways he probably doesn’t even imagine. The kindnesses he seems to dismiss as unimportant, the way he moves and shifts and reappears again, but always remaining fundamentally the same. All the chimera-like qualities he displays have, of course, always been for show – layers upon layers upon layers, from Bruce Wayne to Batman to somewhere in between. But at his core he is unchangeable.

It’s these layers, Clark realises, that he’s been groping through all this time – that’s why they’re never there again when he reaches for them, because Bruce has always twisted away and discarded them by the time Clark has started to push through.

_And now…._

Now Bruce’s lips are warm on his, his slight stubble grazing Clark’s chin, teeth sliding gently over his lower lip. He’s kissing Clark, not simply allowing himself _to be_ kissed, his fist knotted in the hair at the nape of his neck, so that Clark, in his current state, couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to.

Not that he does. It’s exactly the opposite, in fact.

He doesn’t know exactly when this started, or if, until this moment he had truly figured out what was happening within him, but now that it has….

Clark shudders again, long and slow, as he feels the dry skin on the tips of Bruce’s fingers slide gently along his side. Everything feels different from how it used to. He’s kissed people before: Lois, of course. A high school girlfriend. A waitress who pecked him on the cheek once. A woman who crossed her legs to hike her skirt a little, and then told him to buy her a drink. Exactly one other man, a friend, who’d surged up to him on the fishing trawler before backing away again just as quickly, and asking Clark in a terrified voice not to tell anyone. And although all of those things have meant more or less to him – the only reason they’ve left him breathless before is because of the emotion he has attached to them. The first time he kissed Lois will always be burned into his brain because of when it happened and what it meant and because he was in love with her, but the fact had remained that with his powers, there were so many things that it was physically impossible for him to feel as deeply or as greatly as he wished he could.

_But now…_

Clark has to pull back, the still-unfamiliar sensation of actually _needing_ to breathe tightening his chest.

He swallows before he can bring himself to look up into Bruce’s eyes, and face whatever reckoning he might see there.

Bruce’s fingers are still curled lightly in his hair, and his eyes, when Clark can bring himself to face them, are half-closed, almost drowsy-looking. His lower lip looks damp, and his chest, still encased in the suit, is rising and falling more rapidly than the slow, deep breaths he usually takes.

“Bruce –” he starts to say, not sure exactly what he’s going to follow that up with, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because then Bruce is kissing him again – harder this time, more demanding, his tongue in Clark’s mouth driving out any thoughts except _yes, more._

Pain slides through his ribs, but Clark finds he doesn’t even care – it’s so new, all of it, everything, that the pain doesn’t even register as such; it’s all part of the sensation of Bruce kissing him; of everything that has been building between them finally finding its end.

Bruce stands, pulling Clark up with him, lips still pressed to his; when he lifts Clark’s shirt up over his head, Clark has to raise his arms to get it off, and again, the pain is nothing he can take notice of in between the deft touches Bruce is placing on him: his fingers trailing down his spine, his hand on his hip, just above the waistband of his sweats, thumb stroking over the jut of his hipbone.

Clark gasps, head falling back as Bruce’s mouth leaves his, making its way down his throat. He pauses when he reaches the patch of gauze over the place where Clark so very nearly had his throat cut. Bruce’s hand winds its up his body, his fingertips tracing the edge of the white square.

“Clark.”

Clark licks his lips, trying to get his head together – it feels like he has to scrape it back from all the edges of the earth. He can’t even think straight, not with so much happening, so many hard and bright sensations.

“What?” Even Clark can hear how strained his voice is.

“This is… not advisable.”

Clark blinks, managing with some effort to raise his head from where it’s hanging slack on his neck.

“Do you mean… not in my condition, or not in general?”

Bruce looks down at him, regarding him steadily. “Pick one.”

Clark licks his lips, trying to stop his heart from hammering in his ears, and trying to find his vocal chords.

“Bruce, I – what do you think I am? Some damsel who needs to be protected, whose virtue might be compromised?”

For a moment, he sees the ghost of a smirk tug at Bruce’s mouth, before it’s replaced with the granite-hard line that Clark knows well – but which, nonetheless, doesn’t quite reach his half-lidded eyes.

“Be serious.”

“I _am_. I can make this choice for myself, Bruce. You aren’t going to scare me away. Not this time.”

Bruce’s eyes widen a little, and Clark can see his words have found their mark, just as he intended them too – Bruce isn’t the only one who can make subtle little digs and intimations, and have them stick.

He says nothing; Clark can hear his breathing slow, and he realises that he’s losing him – that Bruce is already sliding away, changing beneath Clark’s hands, wheeling away like smoke. He stands, removing his hand from Clark’s throat.

He won't let this happen, Clark thinks to himself, with suddenly clarity – in amongst all the desperate sensations and things he only half-understands, this is stark and clear. He’s not letting it happen. Not after everything; not after spitting out his own grave dirt. Not after everything he has had to rebuild.

He doesn’t care if he’s being selfish. He _died_ , for goodness’ sake. He can have this. He can _know_ this. He can find out what this feels like for everyone else.

So he doesn’t say anything, then, in the end – he just reaches forward again, having to stand slightly on balls of his feet to reach Bruce’s mouth (if he could still fly this wouldn’t be a problem, he thinks, somewhat abstractly).

And Bruce gives into it – slowly, like melting ice – but then he opens his mouth, groaning, surrendering.

Clark doesn’t even have that much time to savour his victory before Bruce’s hands are on him again, pressing into his skin, arms winding around his back. The Batsuit is harsh and cold, but this, too, is welcome – and besides, Clark doesn't have the first clue about how to go about taking it off. The rough edges of the suit send bright darts of sensation through his body, catching gently on his skin, and… he likes it.

He likes all of it – Bruce’s hand on the small of his back, tugging his hips forward and forcing his hardening cock against his stomach through his sweatpants; Bruce’s lips on his, hard enough to make his lips feel swollen and bruised, his stubble grazing gently over his cheek. Bruce’s fingers drifting almost lazily through his hair, fingernails sliding against his scalp.

It’s… a lot.

Clark can already feel that dark gathering at the base of his spine, and he knows that if things don’t slow down, this is going to be very short-lived indeed. When he has his powers, he has full control over these things, but now, when everything seems to be hitting him all at once, forcing shudders from his body and long, low moans from his mouth… it’s a lot.

“Bruce, wait…” he begins, but Bruce, it seems, knows full well what he’s doing – and again, why wouldn’t he – and pulls back, leaving Clark gasping cold air, bewildered, hands filled with nothing.

For a second, cold panic hits him, and he wonders if Bruce has decided that this is enough – this far, no further. But as he blinks and looks around in a mild daze, he hears Bruce snapping at buckles and half-turns to find him shucking off the suit, his fingers working quickly over whatever hidden catches run down his side.

Clark licks his lips. He’s seen Bruce a good deal more than shirtless before – he’s had to cauterise a wound in his thigh, for one thing, and then there was the time Clark needed shrapnel pulled out of what Booster Gold had termed Bruce’s ‘lower butt’, but that had always been a matter of necessity – the last thing on his mind then had been checking Bruce out. Nonetheless, he knows what Bruce looks like beneath the cowl, the cape, the impeccably tailored suits that cost the same as a small townhouse. He knows the dips and grooves of his muscles, the valley where his hips deepen. He knows the plain of his chest, the raised white scars and the small dark marks that trace a lifetime of injuries.

Clark has, in the past, and does now, feel almost abashed at his total lack of them – it’s just one other thing that separates them, one more thing that he can see Bruce measuring himself against, in the moments when Clark has looked up and found his eyes on him.

Like they are now. Now, though, he _is_ marked – he has cuts and bruises and scrapes and sore ribs and he _knows_ now what it’s like for Bruce. What it’s like for every single other human – to get up sore and beaten but to do it anyway, and keep doing it, every day, for the rest of your terrifyingly short life.

Clark finds he can’t speak – he wants to, even if he doesn’t know what to say. So he settles on walking back to where Bruce is standing, sliding out of the lower half of his suit, and kissing him again – deep and hard and with all the meaning he doesn’t think he can put into words.

And Bruce kisses him back.

Clark feels him tugging at him, pulling him across the floor, towards the stairs. He hesitates and begins to say, “I want to stay here,” but Bruce looks back over his shoulder at him, eyebrow raised, before replying, “No. I don’t have the right… things… here.”

Clark furrows his brow, confused, but then sees Bruce smirk a little as he’s sure his sudden comprehension dawns on his face, along with a bright red blush that starts on his neck before burning up to the tips of his ears.

He lets Bruce lead him, hands on his hands, seeming somehow to touch him everywhere on their way up the stairs, into the study, down the hall and into the bedroom.

The bed is soft under his back, Bruce’s body hard above him, and Clark gasps as he feels, for the first time, the thick length of Bruce’s cock, brushing against his. He hasn’t… he’s kissed a man, that one time on the trawler. But that never went anywhere, was never even mentioned again. He has no idea what Bruce’s experience is, but he is, after all, Bruce _Wayne_ , and Clark can easily imagine his adventures have included men.

“Um, Bruce?” he says, breaking away, and trying not to let the shiver that runs though him affect his voice. “I’ve never… I mean, of course I…”

Bruce looks down at him. “I know.”

Clark tries to figure out what exactly that is supposed to convey, but in the end never does – before he can think, Bruce’s hand has slipped below the waistband of his sweats and curled around his cock, his thumb sliding lightly over the head. Clark feels his back arch, his ribs protesting mightily, as a strangled moan forces its way past his lips. This is… this is _nothing_ like anything he has felt before. Hot fire burns its way through the network of his veins, spots appear in front of his eyes, and he bites down on his lip to stop himself from making another embarrassing and embarrassingly loud noise.

“Tell me.” Bruce’s voice is soft in his ear. “Tell me how you want this.”

Clark can’t even think straight enough to give him an answer – not with Bruce’s hand keeping up with its slow, steady strokes up and down his cock, fingers winding slightly around him. Everything in the movement speaks to Bruce’s expertise in this area – really, it's just not fair. How can he be expected to carry on a conversation like this?

“I – I don’t –”

Bruce’s hand makes a sudden twist, and Clark arches up again, crying out.

“Y-you’re doing that on purp-purpose,” he eventually manages to get out, feeling sweat prickle over him.

“Possibly.”

It’s okay, though, Clark decides – if Bruce is being playful then he’s not being cold, and if he were being cold, Clark isn’t sure he could stand it.

“I don’t know,” Clark says helplessly as another shudder wracks through him. “I just –”

Bruce leans down and kisses him, cutting off his words. Clark can hear him groping in a drawer, urgent and a little desperate.

Clark runs his hands over Bruce’s body, looking down at it when Bruce breaks the kiss. He’s not even sure where he should put them, at the moment – he settles for sliding the tips of his fingers over the raised hatches that run down Bruce’s side, before turning into a long, cruel slice of white scar tissue on his abdomen. Bruce shivers lightly under his touch, and Clark, encouraged, runs his hand up to the pale circle of his nipple, catching it between two fingers.

Bruce jerks a little, sucking in a quick breath, and Clark looks up to see him watching him, his eyes unreadable.

“Do you trust me?” Bruce asks, voice low.

Clark frowns. “What? Of course I do.”

He doesn’t have to hesitate over the answer. But Bruce says nothing in return; instead, his hand is back on Clark’s dick, and Clark suddenly finds he doesn’t have room in his head to wonder what he meant anymore. There’s nothing he can do but let his head fall back on the pillow, curling his fingers in the sheets, mouth dropping open as his eyes squeeze shut.

He can feel his muscles cording against his skin, bright spots of pain where it pulls against the wound in his neck, the scrapes on his chest. Clark bites down on his lip, feeling the tang of blood on his tongue – something else new, something else he knows he’ll have to hang onto, because he doesn’t know if he’ll feel it again.

Somewhere above him he can feel Bruce moving himself above Clark, easing his sweats over his hips and down his legs. Bruce’s skin is warm against his, sliding against his, his hand never stopping. He seems to read Clark like a book, knowing when to slow before he slips over the edge and drawing him back.

He can’t hold back when he feels Bruce’s fingers – slick with lube, he realises, and finally figures out what Bruce was scrabbling around in the drawer for – press against him. Clark tries to breathe through it but finds his breath hitching, spine arching every time Bruce sinks them in deeper.

“Oh, God, Bruce,” Clark hears himself say. He doesn’t even know what’s happening to him anymore, and when Bruce’s fingers are replaced by the blunt, straining head of his cock, Clark can’t do anything but cry out, digging his fingers into the hard muscle of Bruce’s back. Fire coils its way up his spine, licking at the base of his skull as Bruce moves within him, his movements small and, Clark thinks, almost gentle.

“I’m not going to break, Bruce,” he manages to gasp out, opening his eyes to find Bruce’s face above his, eyes heavy-lidded, his lips drawn back slightly over his teeth. “You can… I mean, you can –”

“Fuck you?” Bruce asks, punctuating the question with a sharp push of his hips that has Clark seeing stars, both from pleasure that spirals through him and the spike of pain in his ribs.

“Y-Yes,” he says, the word slipping out from between his lips.

He feels Bruce pulse inside him, once, heavily, before he moves his hips again, sheathing himself fully. Clark feels his eyes rolling back in his head, trembling a little, breath hitching, his fingertips digging into Bruce’s shoulder blades.

His lips are parted, and Bruce catches them with his own, tongue darting into his mouth as he draws back slightly before pushing forward again, his movement between Clark’s thighs controlled and steady. Clark can feel the muscles of his thigh against his calf, the way they strain against his skin every time he moves forward. He’s trying desperately to pull all these details together, to keep them in his mind, but he finds it increasingly difficult as things spin away from him, his mind becoming increasingly clouded.

He needs this – he needs to remember. Every small detail, every catch of his skin, every gasp of breath, every slight spike of pain and thrill of pleasure. Ordinarily he can fly from Metropolis to pretty much anywhere else in the world without needing to break a sweat or pause for breath, but now, with Bruce buried inside him, forcing Clark’s body open around him, he can do nothing but pant for oxygen and feel sweat slide over his skin, his body desperate and on the edge.

And he has missed this. Even if these sensations are new, this… closeness, isn’t. He has missed so badly, this connection – sex, for him, had never been just about the physical sensations, but the feeling of closeness, the warmth, the touches. And God, he has missed this.

He clenches himself around Bruce, as if to keep him where he is, or to draw him deeper, or just to tell him _don’t stop_ , and he hears Bruce’s rasping groan in response, the slight stutter of his hips. Clark can hear the rising throb of his heartbeat in his ears, and realises that at this point he can do very little but hold on, his fingers stroking up Bruce’s back, feeling the slight ridges of his spine, the slip of sweat on his skin.

Light begins to blossom behind his eyes, and the insistent heat of orgasm gathers in his groin, making him curl his toes and clench his fists. He has almost given himself over to it, allowed himself to let go and fall over the edge when he feels Bruce’s hand again wrap itself around his cock. Clark arches up with a shout, squirming beneath his body, nerves crackling with both pain and pleasure.

And then, Bruce pulls back slightly, drawing him down again, reading him once again and denying him what he is so clearly desperate for.

“Please,” Clark whispers, opening his eyes a crack and looking into Bruce’s face. “Please, let me – ”

Bruce moves again, and Clark feels his eyes roll back in his head as Bruce’s hand fists over the length of his hard cock. A pulse of white-hot pleasure drives through him, and he hears himself crying out, every muscle in his body as taut as a line, filled with everything and nothing at all.

He knows he is clutching Bruce harder than he should – hard enough that if he had his powers now, Bruce would be in need of some serious reconstructive surgery – but he cannot make himself let go as listens to his heartbeat descending in his ears, his breath gradually slowing, his sweat mingling with Bruce’s where their chests lie against each other.

Clark swallows, feeling the puff of Bruce’s breath against his collarbone, and shifts a little on the mattress. Bruce is heavy, but he cannot bring himself to care. He wants to hold onto this as long as he can, before Bruce can find away to change shape again and slide away from him.

Except he won’t, this time, Clark tells himself. As if holding Bruce’s body will somehow hold his mind, even though he, of all people, knows this is nowhere near the truth.

But still, he can’t make himself let go.

 

*

 

The first thing that Clark notices in the morning when he wakes up is the sunlight.

He can feel it streaming in through the wide glass wall of the lake house before he’s even opened his eyes, sinking into his skin, warming up the parts of him that aren’t covered by the bedsheets. He’s lying on his front with his face buried in the pillows, his arms stretched out across the mattress. And Bruce –

Clark jerks up. Something cold coils in the pit of his stomach, as he glances first one way and then the other, but…

… but Bruce is still there.

Sleeping on his side with his back turned towards Clark, but there nonetheless.

The harsh sunlight illuminates his skin, and for a minute, Clark does nothing but blink and stare down at him, tracing all the lines of scar tissue across his back with his eyes. There’s one or two he can definitely identity as bullet holes, others he knows Bruce received since they’ve known each other. But there’s others that’re older, more faded, which Clark can’t begin to guess the origins of.

He wants to reach out and touch them, as if he could smooth them away with his hand. He even starts to, before clenching his hand closed and dropping his arm back to the mattress.

That’s the first time he notices it – his ribs don’t hurt. Usually the jerking up and raising his arm would have jarred them and sent pain rippling through his body. But now...

… now it doesn’t. If nothing else, sleeping like that should have meant he’d have woken up in a _world_ of pain – it’s bad enough even when he sleeps sitting up like he’s supposed to. But today that’s not the case.

Sitting up, Clark stares down at his hands. The small nicks and grazes in his palms that were only half-healed are already faded. There’s nothing left of them but small red lines, and even they are receding, becoming flawless white skin again.

Clark swallows heavily, and scoots out of bed, going to the full-length mirror on the wall. The gash on his cheek is sliding away; when he gingerly rips off the medical tape over the puncture wound on his throat, not only does it not hurt, but the wound beneath it is sealing itself up.

Clark raises a hand to it, rubbing the skin and feeling a small burn of pain where his fingertips brush over it – but after a moment, all trace of it is gone. There’s no mark, no scar. Nothing to say it had ever even been there in the first place. There’s no bruise on his side. No grazes down his shins or knees. There’s nothing.

He stands, breathing slowly, in front of the mirror, and wishes he could figure out how he felt about this.

“Well, congratulations,” Bruce says from behind him, and Clark turns to find him sitting up in bed, watching him. “Seems like you got your powers back.”

 

*

 

Clark knows he should be listening. He half is – he has one ear on Diana as she explains how they tracked down Doctor Fate for more than three seconds at a time and got him to reverse the artifact’s effect. It was magic – of course it was, otherwise it would have had no effect on him – and it was a very simple thing for him to do, and of course Booster got a lecture, and all was well that ended well.

But Clark’s other ear is stationed very firmly on the beat of Bruce’s heart as he sits across the table from him, fully suited and cowled, eyes very definitely trained on Diana and not on him.

He has been… distant, Clark supposes is the word for it. Bruce is always distant, more or less. But this is Bruce being distant in a way that is supposed to be _read_ as distant. When he’s specifically telling someone they’re not welcome here, into whatever area of his life they have wandered.

He hadn’t even waited for Clark to get a word out this morning in his bedroom – he’d simply stood and left the room, pausing only to grab a silk robe and slide it on over his shoulders. Clark had felt like an idiot standing naked in the middle of the room, so he’d eventually picked up his track pants and headed out into the main part of the house, but Bruce had been nowhere to be seen.

Clark had wondered if he should wait, or what he should do. He’d been on the verge of scribbling Bruce a note, but then he’d emerged from the study, fully dressed. _I’ve arranged to meet with the League,_ he’d said, before beginning to turn away, then pausing. _You can fly there, right?_

And that had been the last thing he’d said to him. His heartbeat had been low and steady in his chest – not that Clark had _meant_ to be eavesdropping on it – and there was nothing about him that indicated that he even _remembered_ what they’d… what they’d done last night.

Clark licks his lips, swallowing. He still remembers it. He is desperate to remember it. Now that he has his powers back, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever experience anything like that again. All the marks have disappeared from his body as if they had never even been there – all the reminders of what it felt like to be human and vulnerable. The only thing he has left is his memories.

“Well, that’s it,” Diana says, breaking into his thoughts as she finishes up her explanation of what’s been going on. Clark feels ashamed of the fact he hasn’t even been _half_ listening for the past few minutes. “Any questions?”

“No. Thank you, Diana. I appreciate it.”

Bruce’s tone is clipped, formal. He stands, nodding to Diana, before turning away and crossing the room, going out the doors at the far side. Diana stares after him, one eyebrow raised.

“Is it just me, or is he…?” She lets the question hang.

Clark clears his throat. He can feel the tips of his ears burning, and hopes Diana can’t see it – even though he knows full well she can.

Diana and Bruce knew each other for months while he was dead – it was their alliance that built the League. Clark has no idea, however, how much they have confided in each other. What things Bruce might have told her.

“I’ll just go… check if he’s all right,” Clark says, the last words coming out in a rush.

There’s no way Diana can’t know something is happening, but Clark can’t bring himself to worry about that now. Before he’s even crossed the room, though, he can already hear the hangar opening, a second before the engine of the Batmobile roars to life.

Clark reaches the door, knowing already that it’s futile. Diana is standing next to him in an instant, looking out at the open door, the smell of exhaust hanging in the air.

“Hmm. Are you two… having a fight?” Diana asks, her tone arch.

“I didn’t think so,” Clark says, over the mechanical grind of the closing door.

“Perhaps you should reassess.”

Clark wants to ask her what to do – what she thinks would be the best way to handle this. But he knows he can’t, not really: not because Diana wouldn’t be at least _somewhat_ sympathetic if he told her, but because he feels like he should be able to understand Bruce well enough by now to make up his own mind about what to do.

He thinks back to last night – how he had held onto him, trying to prevent him from sliding away. It had been futile, though: Bruce is already shedding his skin, transforming and leaving Clark holding nothing but air, yet again.

Clark sets his jaw. Bruce can try it, but it doesn’t mean he has to let him. It doesn’t mean he has to accept it, and just let him go.

If this is the way Bruce wants it, then Clark will just have to pin him down.

 

*

 

Bruce knows he’s coming. Clark just can’t leave well enough alone, and Bruce knows he won’t stop pushing until he gets the answer he wants. That’s Clark all over – gentle but inexorable. An unstoppable force in more ways than the obvious.

Clark’s manners are impeccable, however – he’s not actually _waiting_ at the lake house when Bruce emerges from the cave. He arrives a few seconds later, skimming over the water before landing on the decking out the back.

“Bruce.”

There’s no point in not letting him in. If Clark really wants to talk to him, he’s going to talk, closed door or not.

Bruce unlatches the lock, before turning away. Clark comes in, slightly hesitant, glancing around the room as if it might have changed somehow in the few hours he’s been away.

Bruce turns away, going into the kitchen. He doesn’t want to look at Clark right now – not while he’s like this. Not while he’s this resplendent, unblemished thing, his Superman suit shining in the winter sunlight, totally invulnerable.

When he is what he’s _supposed_ to be.

Not the fragile, mortal man he’s been the past few weeks. The one that Bruce let himself imagine –

_No._

It’s pointless to think like that, so Bruce doesn’t let himself. Instead, he takes out one of his recyclable coffee pods and puts it into the machine, turning it on. It gurgles happily as Clark follows him into the kitchen.

“Bruce, can I talk to you?”

“About?”

Clark’s hesitation is almost audible. “Well, about… last night.”

Bruce looks out over the water, closing his eyes. This is what he’d meant by _kindness_. He’d told himself he was choosing it – that he was giving Clark something he wanted, something he _needed_ in the moment that it had happened. In the end, however, it wasn’t truly kind. When Clark’s powers returned, and when he was back to being himself again, his vulnerabilities gone, then he’d feel the need to try to put things right with Bruce. In giving him what he thought he’d wanted, Bruce had in fact just been heaping another burden on Clark – another problem he’d have to find a way to solve.

He knows what Clark is like. He won’t be able to just let this rest. He’ll worry at it, like a dog with a bone, and feel all sorts of obligations Bruce would rather he didn’t.

And of course, Bruce thinks, letting his lip curl a little, there’s the happy coincidence that this thing that Clark wanted while he was in his lost and lonely state was the very same thing that he himself had wanted. And he had taken advantage of it.

He swallows.

“Is there something to talk about?” he asks, turning back to look at Clark, crossing his arms and leaning back on the counter.

Clark blinks, looking mildly bewildered. “I mean… yes,” he says. “I don’t know why you’re – is this because – is this because we slept together?”

_Yes._

“No.”

Clark furrows his brow, looking at him as if he’s a puzzle to be fitted together – the way he so often looks at him.

Bruce shrugs. “You were hurt and vulnerable. I thought you needed it.”

He watches Clark’s Adam’s apple dip as he swallows, the muscles in his jaw clenching. “I – don’t think that’s true.”

He’s wrong, though – it _is_ true, Bruce thinks. It’s the part of the truth that Bruce thinks will be most beneficial for him to hear.

 _This_ is what kindness is. It’s telling people what they need to hear. Doing the things that need to be done.

He just shrugs. “All right, then.”

There’s not a lot else to say. What Clark thinks is really immaterial.

“I was _there_ , Bruce, in case you’ve forgotten.” Clark’s voice is quiet. “I know what we did. I know why it happened.”

Bruce doesn’t look at him. He just looks straight over his shoulder, to where the sparse leaves on the trees are moving with the wind.

“You’re right. I needed it. But not for the reasons you think I did.”

“Don’t complicate things, Clark,” Bruce says, keeping his voice distant. “It happened. It doesn’t have to mean anything. You can forget about it. I don’t intend to bring it up again.” He politely fails to mention that it’s actually _not_ him who brought it up even this time.

“Bruce, I don’t _want_ to forget about it,” Clark says, his voice rising a little. “Why would you think I – how could –”

This is the problem with Clark. He has to try to put everything right. Even when it can’t be. Even when what he’s trying to fix should not have happened in the first place.

“People do strange things when they’re in strange places,” Bruce says, shrugging. “I get it.”

Clark is staring at him as if he’s talking gibberish. “What? Bruce, I –”

“Trust me when I say I get it, Clark. There’s no need for anything else.”

The coffee machine has finished, so Bruce takes the cup out from under the spout and walks across the kitchen with it. Alfred has laid out the newspapers for him as usual, and he settles at the table, opening the Gazette.

Clark has stayed in the kitchen, and stayed silent. Clark will understand – maybe not now, but he will. He’s Superman, after all. Just because he let himself slip in a moment of vulnerability doesn’t mean a thing. He has no obligations to Bruce. It’s best that he understands that.

 _This_ is kindness.

Bruce doesn’t look up when Clark walks over and sits across from him. He doesn’t say a word until Bruce has finished his coffee, and places the empty cup down on the table.

“Bruce.”

Bruce closes his eyes briefly, before raising them to look Clark in the eye.

“Don’t you think _I’m_ the best judge of what’s best for me?” Clark asks, fixing him with an infinitely reasonable stare. “Even when I don’t have my powers?”

Bruce returns it levelly. “Are you actually asking me that? After everything that’s happened over the past five weeks?”

There’s only a slight shake in his voice. Maybe he should have known Clark would figure it out. He’s not stupid, after all. Self-righteous and interfering and without the first clue when to leave things alone, but not _stupid_.

“It doesn’t need to be this way, Bruce. It really doesn’t.”

Bruce stares at him. He could say anything right now – it wouldn’t take many words for Clark to see that he has it wrong, and that Bruce’s way is best, actually. He could quite quickly make Clark see all the ways that in fact, it _does_ need to be this way. That Bruce is who he is, and Clark is who _he_ is, and that sooner or later, things will turn sour. He knows it, and he thinks Clark does too, even if it’s buried under all his layers of helpless optimism.

“More to the point,” Clark continues after a moment, “I don’t _want_ it to be this way. And I don’t think you do either.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you think _I’m_ the best judge of what’s best for me?” he parrots back, adding just enough of a mocking tone that if Clark were literally anyone else he’d be insulted. But because he’s Clark, he just keeps on looking at him steadily, eyes blue and his face – his face looking exactly the same as it did last night, right before Bruce gave in and kissed him.

He can already feel his control loosening again now – and knows that it’s useless to try to get it back.

Clark seems to know it too, and he leans forward, standing slightly to reach out and touch Bruce’s face with his hand. Bruce swallows as his thumb ticks over his cheekbone, and he can feel himself lean into it, despite telling himself he shouldn’t.

“You don’t need me,” he says. His voice is husky, and he honestly didn’t intend for the words to slip out, though they’re out there now.

“Yes, I do.”

Clark’s lips are on his in the next second, warm and soft, and it’s… it’s almost like kissing him last night was. It's sincere and honest and when he’s kissing him like this, Bruce can almost bring himself to believe it. That after all these weeks of running around after Clark, picking him up and dusting him off, forcing him to come and live in his house… Clark might still need him now.

“It won’t be like it was again,” Clark says, and Bruce can hear the slight husk in his voice as he says it. Like he’s almost regretful. For a moment, Bruce sees something flash in his eyes, but it’s gone in an instant. “But it doesn’t have to be… that doesn’t mean it’ll be _bad_.”

Bruce curls his lip slightly, where it still hovers just above Clark’s. “It couldn’t be nearly as bad as this idea is,” he mutters, unable to help himself.

“Don’t you think we should find that out, instead of just assuming?”

Bruce really does want to tell him _no_ – that this is a terrible idea for truly countless reasons. Too many to name. Far too many.

But as Clark’s lips touch his again, he realises he can’t think of any of them.


End file.
